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New Roles for a Changing 
Environment: Implications of Open 
Access for Libraries 

Krista D. Schmidt, Pongracz Sennyey, and Timothy V. 
Carstens 

This article examines the likely implications of open access on library 
operations.The context of the examination takes place assuming that the 
traditional model of publication and open access coexist. Open access 
presents numerous challenges and opportunities, but entrepreneurial 
libraries will find new ways to serve their patrons in the new mixed open-
access–traditional (MOA) environment. In order to do so, these libraries 
will need to redesign their organization and this can be expected to stretch 
both monetary and human resources. 

he open-access initiative is a 
revolutionary movement in 
scholarly communication that 
has gathered considerable 

momentum in the past few years. Open 
access has many passionate supporters 
because of its promise to make scholarly 
information more readily available, slow 
the commercialization of scholarly com-
munication, and reduce the cost of schol-
arly publications. The open-access initia-
tive has been at the forefront of countless 
discussions regarding the future of 
scholarly communication because open 
access promises to transform the future.1 
This transformation will affect libraries as 
well because they play a critical role in the 
scholarly communication process. 

Libraries intent on providing access 
to scholarly information cannot afford 

to ignore open-access venues. In order 
for libraries to be proactive rather than 
reactive to the changes open access will 
bring, a closer examination of the current 
and impending changes is imperative. 
The authors of this article recognize that 
open access has the potential to affect the 
entire chain of scholarly communication; 
however, this article explores the effects 
of open access on libraries only. 

Open Access Defined 
Although various definitions of open 
access have been put forth by interested 
groups and entities,2 for the purposes 
of this paper, the term open access refers 
to full-text scholarly articles made com-
pletely free and unrestricted to all users 
to read, copy, download, and distribute 
over the World Wide Web. Open access 

Krista D. Schmidt is a Reference Librarian/Science Liaison at Western Carolina University; e-mail: 
kschmidt@email.wcu.edu; Pongracz Sennyey is Head of Collection Management Services at the University 
of Vermont; e-mail: Pongracz.Sennyey@uvm.edu. Timothy V. Carstens is Head of Cataloging/Acquisitions 
at Western Carolina University; e-mail: carstens@email.wcu.edu. 

407 

mailto:carstens@email.wcu.edu
mailto:Pongracz.Sennyey@uvm.edu
mailto:kschmidt@email.wcu.edu


        

   
     

     
      

    

    
      

     

      
    

    

     

      

      

       
    

     

     
     

    
     

      

      
     

      
     

     
        

     

     
    

      
      

 
    

 
     

   
    

     

     

      
       

      

      
     
      

    
         

       
        

      
       

     
    

       
     

    

     

 408 College & Research Libraries September 2005 

can be achieved in a number of ways. The 
Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) 
outlines two strategies: self-archiving 
(referred to as BOAI-I) and open-ac-
cess journals (BOAI-II).3 In BOAI-I, au-
thors place their refereed articles in an 
open, freely accessible online archive. In 
BOAI-II, authors publish their articles in 
open-access journals that do not charge 
subscription/access fees to readers nor 
limit accessibility by invoking copyright 
restrictions (the author retains copyright). 
By contrast, the traditional model of pub-
lication relies almost solely on publishing 
in journals wherein the user/reader buys 
a subscription to access the scholarly in-
formation contained within the journal. 
Access is limited to those entities (groups 
and individuals) that pay subscription 
costs. Moreover, authors surrender copy-
right to the publisher upon acceptance of 
the article for publication. 

The Scenarios 
To understand the effects of open access 
on libraries, the likelihood and degree 
of success of the open-access movement 
need to be considered. There has been 
much debate about if and to what extent 
the open-access movement will succeed. 
The potential future of the movement can 
be addressed in three broad scenarios. In 
the first scenario, open access fizzles out 
and fails; in the second, it succeeds by 
completely surmounting the current sub-
scription model; in the third, it succeeds 
partially and coexists with the traditional 
subscription model. 

Scenario 1: The Movement Fizzles Out 
In the first scenario, the open-access 
movement fizzles out a er the current 
enthusiasm wanes. There are several 
possible reasons for this, including the 
perception on the part of authors that 
the open-access movement is not in their 
best interest. This is critically important 
because it is largely authors, through their 
decision to publish in open-access venues, 
who will determine the success of the 
movement. Authors may resist the move-

ment because the prevalent funding mod-
el shi s the cost of the publication to them 
(generally referred to as the author-pays 
model). The perceived lack of prestige 
of open-access journals and repositories 
also may contribute to authors foregoing 
open-access options.4 In this scenario, the 
movement basically dies because authors 
and institutions, more comfortable with 
the traditional model, fail to embrace the 
open-access movement. 

This scenario seems unlikely for a num-
ber of reasons. It assumes that authors 
will not take advantage of the opportuni-
ties made available by open access, such 
as authors’ retention of copyright, rapid 
dissemination of research, and impact 
advantage.5 Moreover, the demise of the 
open-access model would mean that gov-
ernments, grant-funding agencies, and 
universities passively continue to support 
the profit margins of commercial publish-
ers. Because funding agencies generally 
desire the results of funded research to 
be widely disseminated, some of them 
have seriously considered the possibility 
of requiring authors to publish research 
articles they fund in open-access venues.6 
Based on these two factors alone, the sup-
position that the open-access movement 
will fail and disappear from the scene 
seems unrealistic. 

Scenario 2: The Movement Is an Over-
whelming Success 
In the second scenario, open access suc-
ceeds so overwhelmingly that the tradi-
tional subscription model succumbs to its 
advantages and disappears. Researchers 
en masse no longer agree to sign away the 
rights to their work for someone else’s prof-
it, refuse to accept the traditional lag time 
from finished research to published paper, 
and reject the current boundaries that limit 
dissemination of important and timely 
information. In addition, organizations 
and funding agencies refuse to continue to 
subsidize the nonstop inflationary burden 
imposed by the traditional model. 

Although this scenario would appeal 
to many individuals and organizations, it 



     

      
    

    

 

      

    
    

 
     

        

      

     
      

     

    

     

      

    

      
      

    
      

      
    

     

      
    

      

     
     

    

     
    

    
       

 

     

     
     

    

     
     

 

    
  

Implications of Open Access for Libraries 409 

also seems unlikely to happen. Although 
both authors and institutions may be 
ready to take advantage of open access, 
the fact that the traditional model is well 
established and reputable is likely to keep 
the open-access movement from com-
pletely succeeding. For example, publica-
tions such as Brain, Biochimica et Biophysica 
Acta, and Cell currently enjoy the advantage of 
a long record of publication and a reputation 
for publishing the highest-quality research in 
their fields. The superior reputation of such 
leading journals almost guarantees they will 
continue to find authors who are high-quality 
scholars as well as customers who are willing 
to pay to read this research. 

Moreover, devising a sustainable and 
affordable model to fund open-access 
serials remains unresolved. Although the 
evidence suggests that open-access pub-
lications are considerably less expensive 
to fund than the traditional subscription 
model, journals in some disciplines such 
as the humanities and social sciences re-
main very inexpensive.7 The open-access 
model cannot dislodge these titles merely 
on the basis of a cost advantage. Given all 
these factors, the existence of open access 
should not be interpreted as the inevitable 
demise of the traditional model. 

Scenario 3: The Movement Is a Mixed 
Success 
In this scenario, the open-access move-
ment will continue to succeed but will 
not cause the complete eradication of 
the traditional model. Instead, both the 
open-access and the traditional publish-
ing models will compete for authors and 
resources concurrently. In many ways, 
this is the present situation: both open-
access venues and subscription journals 
coexist. 

Many reasons suggest that this sce-
nario is likely to endure. The traditional 
publication model has many players that 
have a vested interest in its continua-
tion. In addition, this model reaps ample 
profits, which help to keep it functional. 
Commercial, academic, and other pub-
lishers may have to change their pricing 

structure, improve efficiency, and tweak 
operations, but there is li le reason to 
believe they do not have the necessary 
flexibility to compete with open access. 
Also, the a raction of well-established 
titles will remain in place and such 
titles will continue to a ract high-caliber 
authors, despite the growing respect af-
forded to some open-access journals. On 
the other hand, open access offers new 
and less restrictive publishing venues 
for scholars. In addition, some funding 
agencies require that research performed 
with their funds be published or made 
accessible in open-access forums. Open 
access may prove to be a healthy catalyst 
for change, rather than serving as the 
device that topples the entire traditional 
publishing edifice 

Mixed Open-Access Success and Its 
Effects on Libraries 
As illustrated above, it appears that sce-
narios one and two are unlikely to take 
place whereas the third scenario, called 
mixed open access (MOA), is already 
beginning to take place. For example, 
universities such as CalTech, Boston Col-
lege, and MIT have created institutional 
repositories for faculty wherein pre-
prints, postprints, and data sets may be 
found; open-access journals are indexed 
in premier databases such as PubMed, 
PsycInfo, and Chemical Abstracts; and 
some university libraries are beginning 
to include items such as the DOAJ or 
preprint servers such as ArXiv (physics) 
in their list of resources.8 It is too early to 
determine to what degree the traditional 
publishing model and open access will 
coexist. Will this environment still heav-
ily favor traditional publishing, or will 
a more equitable mixture become the 
norm? The proliferation of open-access 
journals and repositories in conjunction 
with the continued existence of traditional 
venues has many implications, and ex-
amining how MOA affects libraries is of 
critical importance now. 

The most dramatic challenge that 
open-access resources present to librar-



      

      
      

     

      
      

 
      

    

     

     

      

     
      

     
     

       
     
     

     
      

       

      
      
        

     
      

    
    

      
     

    
       

     
     

     

    
      
     
      

     

 

     
     

       
        

     
 

    

      

     

    
   

   

    
       
      

    

 410 College & Research Libraries September 2005 

ies is the fact that these resources do not 
require the patrons to use the library. 
Patrons may go to the Web and simply 
use the open-access resource, completely 
bypassing the library. This is a striking 
contrast to the situation that existed when 
libraries built a physical collection of re-
sources that required patrons to come to 
the library to use them. In the electronic 
era, patrons do not have to come to the 
library for many resources, yet they rely 
on remote electronic resources that librar-
ies select and fund and to which libraries 
provide access. The advent of the Internet 
and search engines such as Google has 
eroded patrons’ reliance on libraries by 
making it possible for patrons to find 
large quantities of information, especially 
the sort referred to as “ready reference,” 
without using the library. Similarly, open 
access makes another large, yet more 
scholarly, class of materials available for 
free on the Web, bypassing the library to 
find an ever-growing proportion of the 
available information on the Web. In this 
way, libraries could lose their central place 
in the scholarly research process. 

MOA also presents opportunities for 
libraries to look beyond their traditional 
roles of building collections and sub-
scribing to remote resources. Libraries 
need to think of themselves as mediators 
between their patrons and the ever-ex-
panding and increasingly complex world 
of information. With regard to open-ac-
cess resources, libraries can serve their 
patrons in a number of ways. Patrons 
may be unaware of the existence of open-
access resources, so librarians can assist 
them by identifying the resources that 
meet patron needs. One way this can be 
accomplished is by providing patrons 
with indexes and databases that include 
open-access resources. For example, 
EBSCOhost recently began providing 
access to selected Directory of Open 
Access Journals (DOAJ) titles. Another 
respected database, PubMed, indexes 
select open-access journals as well. It is 
certain that more indexing and abstract-
ing services will follow suit. 

Despite the likelihood that more index-
ers and aggregators will add open-access 
resources to their databases, libraries 
should not passively rely on them to 
include these titles. As with traditional 
journals, librarians must be aware of what 
open-access resources are included in any 
particular database. Libraries also must 
maintain communication with aggrega-
tors so that they know the aggregators’ 
inclusion policies and how aggressively 
a particular aggregator searches for and 
includes open-access items. The overlap-
ping and fluctuating coverage of tradi-
tional resources provided by indexers and 
aggregators already provides ample rea-
son for libraries to evaluate what they buy 
more carefully, but the advent of the MOA 
environment makes this task urgent and 
complex. Moreover, libraries cannot rely 
on indexers and aggregators to lead their 
patrons to every relevant open-access re-
source. It is likely that some open-access 
journal titles will not be included by any 
indexer or aggregator. For example, Mag-
netic Resonance in Solids, Electronic Journal 
is a peer-reviewed electronic journal 
pertaining to basic research in magnetic 
resonance of solids and related phenom-
ena and it is not indexed in the DOAJ, the 
most likely database to contain any open-
access title. Yet, this item may still be of 
interest and use to patrons; it is obvious 
that libraries must take the initiative to 
add it to the library catalog themselves. 
Indexers and aggregators may be less 
likely to provide access to the informa-
tion in institutional or discipline-based 
open-access repositories. Because some 
of the most cu ing-edge information is 
included in these resources, a concerted 
effort must be made to alert patrons to 
these open-access venues. Librarians 
will have to work hard to identify these 
important and useful resources. 

Another challenge for libraries operat-
ing in an MOA environment is to monitor 
the quality of the open-access resources to 
which their patrons are directed. Even a 
relatively “respectable” list of open-access 
journals such as DOAJ will include jour-



       
     
     

       
      

    
      

   

     
 
     

   

      
      

      
     

       

 

    
       

     

     
   

     

   
      

    
      

 
     

   
   

 
   

     
      

  

    

   

     

      
    

  

  

      

     

    

      

     

     

    

   

      

 

      

Implications of Open Access for Libraries 411 

nals of widely differing quality in terms of 
both content and editorial control. Librar-
ians should identify a specific open-access 
journal as a high-quality product before 
directing their patrons to it. In fact, as 
with print journals, the question of quality 
continues to be an issue. Although many 
open-access publishers are striving to 
retain a stringent peer review or edito-
rial component within their publication 
process, open access is still a new pub-
lication model. Some also argue that the 
prevailing author-pays model provides 
less incentive for open-access publishers 
to apply rigorous quality control stan-
dards.9 The issue of quality is even more 
critical in the case of discipline-based, 
institutional and, in particular, personal 
repositories. Although most discipline-
based and institutional repositories have 
policies or guidelines in place that govern 
what types of materials are acceptable for 
submission, there are no controls or rules 
to dictate what types of resources may 
be included in an individual’s personal 
repository. In theory, anyone could make 
any type of material, both quality and not, 
available on the Web via a repository. 

Meeting the implications of MOA also 
will mean more work for bibliographers. 
In the MOA environment, bibliographers 
will have to work as diligently as ever 
to identify, evaluate, and select those 
resources that should be purchased with 
library funds. Moreover, they will be 
responsible for identifying open-access 
resources that will be of interest to their 
patrons. In addition, bibliographers will 
be responsible for finding the repositories 
that need to be included in the library’s 
catalog, database lists, and so on. To do 
these things effectively, bibliographers 
must stay abreast of trends in their 
disciplines and maintain an awareness 
of how each discipline views and uses 
open-access items. To keep track of open-
access venues, bibliographers need to use 
open-access-specific tools or databases 
such as DOAJ (http://www.doaj.org/), 
OAIster (h p://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/ 
o/oaister/), Sherpa’s “Publisher copy-

right policies & self-archiving,” as well 
as tools such as Google’s Open Access 
Resources Directory (http://directory. 
google.com/Top/Reference/Open_Ac-
cess_Resources/) or the Google Scholar 
platform (h p://scholar.google.com/). In 
addition, sometimes bibliographers must 
simply surf the Web for this information. 
These tools will help bibliographers to 
make decisions about what items should 
be used or included, recommended or not 
recommended, based on the discipline. 
This will be even more challenging and 
time-consuming if open-access publica-
tions and venues continue to multiply at 
their current rate. 

Although identifying high-quality 
open-access resources is critically impor-
tant, these resources will not be useful 
to patrons unless libraries communicate 
their existence and usefulness and inte-
grate them into their virtual collections. 
Librarians can alert patrons to open-ac-
cess venues in a number of ways, includ-
ing adding an open-access resource in 
the library catalog or to the library’s list 
of serials. When open-access resources 
are included in the catalog, patrons will 
not need to wonder whether the mate-
rial is available in a traditional print or 
electronic subscription or via open access. 
The catalog can provide them with just 
one place to look for this information. Li-
brarians also should include appropriate 
open-access resources in pathfinders and 
research guides because these are other 
important ways of directing patrons to 
relevant, high-quality information. 

When open-access resources have been 
included in the library catalog and other 
library products, the information about 
these resources must be maintained. The 
difficulty of maintaining open-access 
resources in the library catalog and other 
resources should not be underestimated. 
To begin, it is reasonable to assume that 
open-access journals will be at least as 
prone to name changes, splits, mergers, 
URL changes, changes in subject cover-
age, and cessation as their print subscrip-
tion counterparts. It also seems likely that 

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http://directory
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http:http://www.doaj.org


   

      

     
     

     

     
     

       
  

    
     
       

       

    

    

        
       

       
       

    
      

     

    
     
     

      

    
      

    
     

      

      
       

      
     

      

     

     

    

       
      

 

      
    

    

      

     
        

     

      

     

     
     

    

 412 College & Research Libraries September 2005 

repositories of all types may be subject to 
similarly frequent transformations. The 
catalog and other library resources will 
need to be updated regularly to reflect 
these changes. 

Open-access resources also share with 
other electronic publications a host of 
characteristics that make them difficult to 
maintain in the catalog. The challenge of 
maintaining the currency of URLs, which 
are prone to change or disappear, should 
be obvious. Libraries are a empting to 
deal with this problem locally through 
the use of link checkers and collectively by 
means of the CONSER PURL (Persistent 
Uniform Resource Locators) project.10 
Dealing with title changes in electronic 
journals also has proved to be a prob-
lem. With print publications, changes in 
title and so on are caught when an issue 
is checked in and a cessation is caught 
when an issue fails to arrive. Electronic 
subscriptions offer fewer routine methods 
of catching these changes. Even greater 
problems can occur when electronic 
publishers, both traditional and open ac-
cess, decide to change the title of a journal 
and then apply that title change to all 
the earlier issues of the title on their Web 
site. Should the cataloger use successive 
cataloging entry (entry under each title 
the journal has had) or latest-entry cata-
loging (entry under the last title) to handle 
such a journal? Although it is tempting to 
treat this type of journal as an integrating 
resource and use latest-entry cataloging, 
the survival of the earlier title in patron 
citations and in article-level running 
titles and so on presents problems for 
this approach as well.11 The simultaneous 
existence of multiple formats of the same 
journal, including print and microform 
and different electronic journal file for-
mats and aggregator versions, creates ad-
ditional troubles.12 The question of how to 
provide the necessary information about 
these multiple versions and the relation-
ships among them without thoroughly 
confusing the patron continues to be a 
problem for the cataloging profession. 
Finally, ensuring that the catalog contains 

accurate ISSN information for electronic 
journals has become an important chal-
lenge. ISSN numbers have become a criti-
cal piece of information because they are 
o en used by various technologies to link 
databases to the online catalog and to each 
other. However, journals that lack ISSN or 
have different ISSNs for different formats 
can make the provision and maintenance 
of the appropriate version of these impor-
tant identifiers difficult.13 

All the difficulties of adding elec-
tronic resources to the catalog apply to 
open-access journals as well, and these 
resources are likely to present additional 
unique problems. Electronic journals pur-
chased by subscription are not checked 
in, bound, or handled physically in the 
same way that print journals are, but they 
still require a ention from library staff 
because licenses must be negotiated and 
renewed, passwords or IP ranges tested, 
and authentication so ware maintained. 
All these processes provide the library the 
opportunity to evaluate the availability 
and scope of these titles and ensure that 
bibliographic information such as the 
title continues to be accurate. In contrast, 
libraries only have to link to open-ac-
cess titles once. In this way, open-access 
resources are somewhat like free Web 
sites. When they are in a library catalog or 
other finding aid, they can easily morph 
into other forms without the library’s 
knowledge. Therefore, to maintain these 
resources properly, libraries will need to 
adopt mechanisms that regularly check 
these resources to ensure that the informa-
tion provided is up to date and accurate. 
This active maintenance routine is bound 
to be more complex and time-consuming 
than the more passive methods that have 
worked for more traditional resources. 

The open-access business model also 
may not give publishers incentive to 
actively cooperate with the library or 
with serials vendors who may be acting 
on behalf of groups of libraries. Libraries 
are one of the most important customers 
under the traditional subscription model, 
and so journal publishers have an inter-

http:difficult.13
http:troubles.12
http:project.10


       
   

    
     

     

     

    

      
    

 
       

     
    

     
      

      

     
 

      

 
     

     
     

     

     

 

 
    

     
   

    
 

    
   

     
      

   

   

     
     

    

      

     

     
 
     

     

    

     

Implications of Open Access for Libraries 413 

est in making their publications easy for 
libraries to use. With authors as their cus-
tomers, open-access arrangements may 
not have the same incentive to cooperate. 
For example, will open-access journal 
publishers have the same incentive to 
work with libraries to solve problems 
such as changed titles, URLs, cessations, 
and downtime that sometimes affect elec-
tronic journals? The need for some kind 
of relationship between publishers and 
libraries, though perhaps not as critical, 
will still be necessary in an open-access 
environment. 

The hybrid character of the MOA 
environment presents other serial mainte-
nance challenges for the library. A library 
might contain parts of the same journal in 
print and microform, provide access to a 
part of the journal’s back file through an 
open-access archive, and provide access 
to issues through an aggregator. Access 
for a particular resource may undergo 
constant change as license agreements 
are renegotiated, embargoes are put into 
effect, and publication strategies evolve. 
Keeping up with this constant change, 
while making all these variations in access 
transparent to the patron, is an additional 
maintenance challenge for the library. 

Another factor that may increase the 
difficulty of serials maintenance in the 
MOA environment is the increase in the 
number of titles that must be maintained. 
In the print/electronic subscription envi-
ronment, the number of titles is limited 
by the library’s budget. In the MOA en-
vironment, libraries will have to maintain 
both their paid subscription titles and 
every open-access title added to the 
catalog. Because libraries do not pay for 
open-access titles, there is no fiscal limit 
to the number of titles that can be added. 
Therefore, as the number of open-access 
resources grows, the library may find 
itself keeping track of many more open-
access titles than subscription titles. This 
will obviously increase the workload of 
serials maintenance. An increase in the 
number of serial titles also may result in 
an increased need for products such as 

federated search engines and open URL 
link resolvers. These can help the patron 
more easily navigate among resources of 
a large and complex MOA environment. 
However, these products also generate 
maintenance issues of their own because 
they rely on complex database tables 
containing detailed information about 
every title and database of concern to the 
library. These tables require regular and 
extensive maintenance. 

The maintenance involved with pro-
viding patrons access to MOA resources 
will be a daunting challenge for libraries. 
However, there are some ways in which 
open-access resources will require less 
maintenance than traditional subscrip-
tion resources. Open-access journals do 
not require subscription funds or license 
agreements. Libraries do not have to 
check in or claim these publications to 
ensure that they have received what was 
promised. Furthermore, unlike print 
materials, libraries do not have to physi-
cally process, shelve, bind, or withdraw 
these resources. The resources saved by 
not having to perform these tasks could 
be directed toward the new tasks associ-
ated with MOA. 

By making open-access resources 
available through the library catalog and 
other resources, the library will be able 
to make the MOA environment almost 
transparent to the patron. MOA also 
has significant implications for public 
services librarians. Most library patrons 
currently are unaware of the wealth of 
information available in the open-access 
environment. This is an important gap 
that information literacy instruction can 
fill. As their awareness increases, patrons 
will expect librarians to be able to help 
them navigate a chaotic and complex 
MOA environment. They are especially 
likely to need help using open-access 
repositories if they have not previously 
used these resources. Patrons also are 
likely to need help evaluating the qual-
ity of open-access information because 
quality can be uneven. In order to fulfill 
this role effectively, public services librar-



       

       
    

   
   

     

       

    
    

    
    

 
      

    

     

      

 
     

   
    

 
     

      
    

     
       

   
    

    
      
      

      
      

 
      
     

    

     
      

      
    

   
    

     

    

     

       
      

    
      
     

     

 414 College & Research Libraries September 2005 

ians will have to become educated about 
open access. Bibliographers, who should 
be actively investigating open access in 
their disciplines, will have a role to play 
in this training process. 

As a result of their traditional role 
as storehouses of scholarly information, 
libraries have a natural role in the creation 
and operation of institutional repositories. 
Although responsibility for managing 
campuswide policies and procedures, 
managing the computational and techni-
cal requirements of repositories, and exer-
cising editorial and quality control is un-
likely to fall to libraries alone, libraries can 
be responsible for some repository tasks. 
For example, it is natural for the library 
to assume responsibility for organizing 
the information within the institutional 
repository. The Open Archives Initia-
tive Protocol for Metadata Harvesting 
provides one framework for organizing 
information within repositories.14 Librar-
ians also may play an administrative role. 
For instance, because of their experience 
with copyright issues, librarians are well 
suited to assist authors in obtaining per-
mission to include previously published 
materials in the repository. These natural 
relationships foster a close association 
between the library and an institutional 
repository. 

The library’s involvement in the opera-
tion of institutional repositories suggests 
another new role. Institutional reposito-
ries and open-access venues in general are 
having some difficulty a racting authors 
to publish on their sites.15 One role that 
libraries may assume is to encourage 
open-access publication by subsidizing 
authors’ fees in open-access venues. 
Some trailblazing libraries have already 
begun to fund open-access publication.16 
Funding open-access publication is a new 
twist on the library’s traditional role as 
the institutional purchaser of scholarly 
information. In addition, this funding role 
will help keep the library at the center 
of the scholarly enterprise. As an added 
benefit, encouragement of open-access 
publication with library subsidies may 

add pressure on commercial publishers 
to control their price increases. However, 
subsidizing authors’ publication costs also 
may be risky for libraries because libraries 
may not receive any additional funding to 
cover the cost of this activity. In this case, 
these subsidies will have to be funded 
with money that would otherwise be used 
to build library collections. 

The overall effect of MOA on library 
budgets is uncertain at this point. The 
number of both monographs and sub-
scription-model serials being published 
continues to increase. At the same time, 
both monograph and serial inflation con-
tinues at a rate higher than the CPI, while 
library collection budgets remain flat. If 
libraries begin to subsidize open-access 
publication, this will create yet another 
strain on the budget. These trends are a 
real threat to the ability of the library to 
operate within its financial constraints. 
But, if open access becomes a catalyst for 
change and subscription costs decrease, 
the potential benefits are obvious. This 
would be a great benefit to libraries 
because serials inflation has done more 
damage to library budgets than any other 
trend. If serials costs decrease, libraries 
should take steps to repair the damages 
that decades of unchecked inflation have 
wrought on collections. Monographs, 
audiovisuals, data sets, and primary 
sources are long-neglected parts of library 
collections. Those libraries that succeed 
in addressing these problems are sure to 
make themselves more relevant to their 
patrons. 

Conclusions 
The evidence suggests that although 
open-access sources are multiplying at a 
rapid pace, the traditional model will not 
disappear. In all likelihood, the traditional 
model will coexist with the open-access 
model for years to come. This is especially 
true of journals in the humanities and 
social sciences, which are moderately 
priced and are competitive with the open-
access model from a financial perspective. 
The implications for libraries and their 

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Implications of Open Access for Libraries 415 

organization are significant. The fact 
that open-access resources are accessible 
without the library’s intervention sug-
gests that academic libraries will have to 
reconsider strategies to remain relevant 
to their patrons. 

It is evident that library operations 
were built on a paradigm of scholarly 
communication based on printed sources. 
With the onset of electronic publications, 
and now open-access publications, this 
paradigm is bound to change. It is obvi-
ous that the changes in scholarly com-
munication will force libraries to change 
as well. This article is not meant to focus 
on the difficulties and uncertainty of a 
changing environment but, rather, to 
alert the profession to the opportunities 

and challenges these changes will bring. 
Although many of the issues described 
above have been present in libraries since 
the advent of electronic publications and 
the Internet, the emergence of the open-
access movement exacerbates the urgency 
of issues such as archiving, data stability, 
cost containment, and so on. 

Finally, it is worth noting that the 
emergence of the open-access initiative 
sha ers the myth that there are no al-
ternatives to the traditional publishing 
model. What libraries do with the op-
portunities that the open-access move-
ment offers will depend on librarians’ 
resourcefulness and creativity. And, in 
this sense, the changes open access elicits 
are empowering. 

Notes 

1. Pritpal S. Tamber, Fiona Godlee, and Peter Newmark, “Open Access to Peer-reviewed 
Research: Making It Happen,” Lancet 362, no. 9395 (Nov. 8, 2003): 1575–77; Brian D. Crawford, 
“Open-access Publishing: Where Is the Value?” Lancet 362, no. 9395 (Nov 8, 2003): 1578–80; David 
Malakoff, “Scientific Societies Lay Out ‘Free Access’ Principles,” Science 303, no. 5666 (Mar. 26, 
2004): 1959; Stevan Harnad, “Debate Over Open Access in the U.K.,” Science 306, no. 5705 (Dec. 
24, 2004): 2187; Ajit Varki, “Open Access: The JCI Has Already Shown It Works,” Nature 426, no. 
6965 (Nov. 27, 2003): 383. 

2. Some examples include the Berlin Declaration (h p://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-ber-
lin/berlindeclaration.html), the Washington DC Principles for Free Access to Science (h p://www. 
dcprinciples.org/statement.pdf), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (h p://www. 
earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm), and Wellcome Trust Position Statement in Support of 
Open Access Publishing (h p://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD002766.html). 

3. Open Society Institute, “Budapest Open Access Initiative.” Available online at h p://www. 
soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml. 

4. Carol Cruzan Morton, “Experts Debate Open-access Publishing Option,” Focus (Jan. 9, 
2004), under “Publishing” at h p://focus.hms.harvard.edu/2004/Jan9_2004/publishing.html; 
“Public Library of Science Launches PLoS Biology: New Open-access Journal Will Increase Ac-
cess to Scientific Research and Speed Scientific Discovery,” ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2003). Available 
online at h p://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031014072453.htm. 

5. Steven Harnad and Tim Brody, “Comparing the Impact of Open Access (OA) vs. Non-
OA Articles in the Same Journals,” D-Lib Magazine 10, no. 6 (June 2004). Available online at 
doi:10.1045/june2004-harnad, h p://www.dlib.org/dlib/june04/harnad/06harnad.html; Open 
Society Institute “Budapest Open Access Initiative,” Feb. 14, 2002. Available online at h p://www. 
soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml. 

6. “Scientific Publishing Is Having to Change Rapidly to Respond to Growing Pressure for 
Free Access to Published Research,” Economist 372, no. 8387 (Aug. 7, 2004): 65. 

7. SQW Limited, preface to Costs and Business Models in Scientific Research Publishing: A Report 
Commissioned by the Wellcome Trust. (London: The Wellcome Trust, 2004), iii; available online at 
h p://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/images/costs_business_7955.pdf; Donald W. King, “Should Com-
mercial Publishers Be Included in the Model for Open Access through Author Payment?” D-Lib 
Magazine 10, no. 6 (June 2004). Available online at doi:10.1045/june2004-king, h p://www.dlib. 
org/dlib/june04/king/06king.html. 

8. Two examples include Cornell University, which lists both DOAJ and ArXiv.org in the 
general and physics database lists (h p://encompass.library.cornell.edu:20028/index.html) as well 
as the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, which includes DOAJ in “Article Databases & 
More” (h p://eresources.lib.unc.edu/eid/list.php?le er=D) and ArXiv.org in a research guides 

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 416 College & Research Libraries September 2005 

for physics (h p://www.lib.unc.edu/brauer/physguide.html). 
9. Michael A. Mabe, “Peer Review and Pay-to-Publish: The World Turned Upside Down?” 

Against the Grain 16, no.3 (June 2004): 56. 
10. Emily McElroy, “An Interview with Steve Shadle,” Serials Review 28, no.4 (winter 2002): 

323. 
11. Les Hawkins, “Reflections on Wrapping Paper: Random Thoughts on AACR2 and Electronic 

Serials,” Serials Review 30, no.1 (2004): 53. 
12. ———, “An Interview with Jean Hirons, CONSER Coordinator,” Serials Review 29, no.3 

(fall 2003): 234–35. 
13. Marian Shemberg, “The Role of the ISSN in the Electronic Linking Environment,” Serials 

Review 29, no.2 (summer 2003): 89–96. 
14. Carl Lagoze, ed., et al, “The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting,” 

Mar. 21, 2003. Available online at h p://www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol. 
html#Repository. 

15. Andrea L. Foster, “Papers Wanted: Online Archives Run by Universities Struggle to A ract 
Material,” Chronicle of Higher Education (June 25, 2004). 

16. OhioLink, “Ohio Academic Libraries Support Public Library of Science: OhioLINK Will 
Fund Half of PLoS’ Publication Fee for Authors at 85 Institutions,” news release, June 2, 2004. 
Available online at h p://www.ohiolink.edu. 

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