OhioLINK is pleased to announce a ground-breaking, transformative, open access pilot with John Wiley and Sons, Inc. This collaboration was created out of service to our members and in consideration of the growing potential (and not yet entirely understood) impact of open access on library consortia like ourselves. We're committed to supporting our membership in their open access and scholarly communication efforts and we are excited for this initial step.
We will be presenting the details and decisions to be made by our members at our annual All Directors meeting on June 14th. We anticipate and understand this announcement will garner a great deal of curiosity, both among our members and among the national library community. Once baseline decisions are made at the leadership level by our membership, we'll be creating a more detailed FAQ in the coming weeks to share publicly that will address your questions. We anticipate implementation in the fall of 2019.
Stay tuned for more announcements; the open access conversation at the consortial level is only just beginning. We at OhioLINK are proud to be leading the discussion on behalf of our members.
For more information:
- Read the press release in its entirety: "OhioLINK Breaks New Ground Creating Central Fund for Open Access Publications with Wiley."
- Executive Director Gwen Evans recently explored the implications of open access for consortia, positing the framework of "read" consortia versus "publish" consortia and how open access presents differently for each: "Evaluating Open Access in a Consortial Context."
- In the interest of summarizing the support and involvement of the OhioLINK community, see specific quotes from the press release below:
- Carolin Sterling of Central State University Library and Chair of OhioLINK’s Library Advisory Council (LAC): “As a membership organization with a long history of cooperation and collaborative action, we look forward to the opportunities that this will give us to assess open access support as a diverse group of institutions.”
- Xuemao Wang, University of Cincinnati Dean of Libraries and past LAC chair: “The experimental Wiley open access initiative will not only create learning experiences for the OhioLINK community in navigating consortium-based open access operational complexity, but is also a significant step forward to cultivate an open mind set for the greater potential of the coming bold open movement.”
- Damon E. Jaggars, Vice Provost and Director of University Libraries at The Ohio State University and member of the LAC Coordinating Committee: “Increasing the global reach of scholarship produced by Ohio State researchers is a strategic priority for the university and its libraries. This initiative with Wiley is a first step in building our understanding of how a consortium like OhioLINK might play a significant role in increasing access to important scholarship by opening content for worldwide use in research, teaching, and learning,” Jaggars said.
About OhioLINK
Connecting libraries, learning and discovery. Established in 1992, the Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is Ohio's statewide academic library consortium serving 117 libraries, 88 institutions of higher education, the State Library of Ohio and more than 880,000 students, faculty, staff and researchers. Delivering both IT infrastructure and content negotiation, OhioLINK provides access to digital research collections rivaling top university libraries in the United States and internationally--at a fraction of the cost. OhioLINK also connects library services, print and digital collections among its member institutions and manages collaborative services, including eTutoring, statewide Affordable Learning textbook initiatives, and Open Educational Resources. A member of the Ohio Technology Consortium of the Ohio Department of Higher Education, OhioLINK creates a competitive advantage for its members and supports student and researcher success in the state of Ohio. For more information visit http://www.
