SANLiC 2021 Conference Videos

Sustainability in the Higher Education Sector
Higher Education South Africa faces an existential threat in this age of multi ongoing disruptions. Financial sustainability stares universities in the face. It does not have to be so. Opportunities beckon if universities re-imagine themselves as drivers of impactful and transformative change. Multiple changes in the way universities do things are a must from what they teach, how they teach to what they research and how they do research and how they manage financial and other resources.

The Post Pandemic Boom

• What mega shifts can we expect in the future? How to leverage the post pandemic boom
• Ambidexterity is key to the future. How to build it
• Navigating disruption
• How will the next 10 years be impacted by the events of today?
• How will your organisation be affected by political, economic, social, societal, technological and other changes?
• A granular view on the future of sectors, industries and business models. Insights from this talk are based on Abdullah’s best selling book
• How can companies reposition their strategy now, with an eye on the next decade?
• What will the future of work look like? • What does agility and adaptability look like in a post COVID world?
• How can individuals and leaders ensure they have the right tools to adapt and thrive in this new context?

Two years, two disasters
The unanticipated outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 tragically impacted the entire world. In trying to survive this disease, the world literally came to a halt and a new dispensation of operating began. Social distancing became mandatory and ushered in the switch from physical to virtual operations. The University of Cape Town was one of the academic institutions that shifted to a virtual service model, offering online services and support moving beyond the physical barriers of walls. The shift to virtual resulted in a greater demand for access to online material. With this demand we saw our publishers and providers rise to the occasion with unbelievable assistance. In April 2021, UCT was rocked by a second disaster: the Jagger Library fire that ripped at the heart strings of many, far and wide, and decimated the African Studies collections of books and film. This presentation focusses on the work done in the Acquisitions Department in response to two disasters and the fantastic responsive and supportive role that our publishers and providers played through generous remote access to databases, journals, and electronic books.

The influence of COVID19 in meeting academic library users’ online information needs: the case of a South African university library
Electronic library resources are vital in meeting the information needs of academic library users. The impact of COVID19 has forced many academic libraries in South Africa to offer a remote online service to their users. In doing so, many academic libraries have had to embrace the concept of the digital library and the adoption of Library 2.0 tools to support the information needs of their users. The challenges of providing a remote online service and the accessibility of electronic resources for users are highlighted in the case study. Strategies to improve service delivery and access to electronic resources are discussed in light of the need to satisfy the information needs of academic library users.

Distraction or engagement? Social Media, Libraries, and Digital Reading Behavior
The worldwide pandemic has had many consequences for libraries, including the need to rely more and more upon digital platforms to serve and engage with their readers. In this talk, I will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities that this shift to digital access and digital might mean – especially the ways in which social media may or may not help to promote reader engagement.

Renewed mission for engagement to enhance discovery of information resources: a case of UP library
When Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa were compelled to transition to “emergency” online learning, academic libraries had to align to supporting the academic programme virtually. The University of Pretoria (UP) Library was no exception, with the pandemic having altered our environment it because essential that the library align it services and operations to the expressed needs of the university community. The library found itself uncertain if there was full grasp of how the needs of the university community, the changing needs and new needs. Challenges also which may emanate from varied environments that everyone was working from. In a was campus environment may be an equaliser.

The presentation will outline the two surveys conducted during 2020 targeting different audiences of the university community. With these surveys the library was able to receive valuable input and suggestions from undergraduate. The usability study undertaken by the user experience team to allow for in-depth evaluation of discovery of electronic resources will also be discussed. The voices which will also be represented in the presentation will be the engagements of the Senior Management team of the library with Senior Management of the University as well as with the student leaders. The successes in responding to the needs will be discussed, the strengths of investing in a digital library over the years will be shared. Finally short-term and medium-term interventions will be discussed and areas for further improvements will also be acknowledged.

Adapting librarians skills and workflows to survive in a ‘new normal’ world
Librarian skills and library workflows have been challenged during the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. Working from home and staying relevant to patrons and library users has become a hot topic in the library and information arena. Many of us thought that the pandemic would soon be a thing of the past – but are coming to realise that many of the changes we have seen could to be here to stay; we as librarians are adapting to a “new normal”. If you are still paving your way through change and trying to figure out where to best situate your library strategically, this session can assist in guiding your evolution, in adjusting and refocusing your support to patrons, budgeting from p to e, and evaluating resources in the post COVID world

What e-resource librarians wish client services librarians knew
Numerous conversations with colleagues allude to a potential disconnect between electronic resource management processes, and how this impacts on the ability of client services to effectively manage collections as well as to respond to user needs. This paper examines some of the key issues that, if addressed, would further empower client services staff in rendering effective service and front-line support.

These areas include:

• Language of the environment
• Vendor business models
• Technical requirements
• Licensing & Access management

The paper proposes continual professional development opportunities to grow knowledge and understanding of electronic resources management, as a key strategy towards collective responses to user needs.

Reflections on relevance, over to you – a Library Directors’ Panel discussion
Day one of the conference focuses on exploring digital disruption and understanding its impact. In this final slot on day one, three library directors will engage in a panel discussion in which they reflect on the day’s deliberations from their perspective as academic library directors and respond to the implications for their libraries.

The panelists are:

• Dr Connie Bitso is the Director of the University of Fort Hare Libraries.
• Dr Mathew Moyo is Chief Director: Library and Information Service at the North-West University.
• Dr Shirlene Neerputh is the Director of Library Services at the University of the Western Cape.

COUNTER 5 – how to make it work for libraries and consortia
Release 5 of the COUNTER Code of Practice provides new opportunities for libraries and library consortia to make data informed decisions. This presentation will discuss how this Release creates a level playing field, enabling libraries to compare usage and calculate cost per use accurately across platforms. COUNTER reports also provide library consortia with great insights, enabling them find benchmarks which will inform their negotiations with publishers and vendors. It will also discuss the free tools that are now available, to enable libraries and consortia to automate the harvesting of usage reports more easily, so time can be better spent on analysing statistics rather than manually downloading reports.

The use metrics to show the value of electronic resources and for decision making in South African academic libraries
In most academic libraries in South Africa, the bulk of information resources budgets are reserved for the purchase of electronic resources that include databases, ejournals, eBooks and other electronic media. To justify the huge expenditure on electronic resources libraries are continuously required to show their value to the university communities – especially students’ success, research outputs and to some extent administrative work. Library directors and their teams rely heavily on usage statistics to demonstrate value as well as in decision making as to which resources to purchase and continue supporting. This presentation outlines the approaches through use of metrics to demonstrate value as well their application in decision making. The presentation also outlines the forms in which the various user statistics and data are presented to add meaning in the presentations by librarians to the user community and university management.

What the ESAC Market Watch and Registry has to offer libraries
As scholarly publishing moves from a subscription-based system to one based on open access, librarians who have traditionally been responsible for collections and acquisition decision-making and publisher negotiations are having to add new strategic perspectives to their skill set. More and more institutions around the world are negotiating central open access publishing agreements with fully open access publishers to secure better conditions and service for their authors. Similarly, transformative agreements are proliferating, driving rapid evolution in licensing practices; there are currently hundreds of such agreements negotiated by libraries and consortia in more than 30 countries and with over 40 different publishers. But at the landscape evolves, how are librarians to keep up with all of the changes and position themselves for success as they face publishers with new expectations? In this context the ESAC Initiative has grown into an open and global community of practice of librarians who are sharing their experiences and expertise in the operational aspects of open access agreements. The ESAC community also develops community resources and guidelines to empower librarians as they move into the era of open access, including the ESAC Workflow Recommendations, ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry and ESAC Market Watch.

The usage patterns of library’s E-resources in the year 2020 at the University of Zululand
The mission of the University of Zululand Library is to efficiently support the teaching, learning and research function of the University in a cost-effective and reliable manner by promoting access to information, collecting and maintaining a relevant and balanced stock of information resources in an orderly and user-friendly environment. In the year 2020, this mission was once again put into test due to the global changes that were brought by the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic. The UNIZULU library services like any other academic libraries needed to be a step ahead in facilitating seamless access and provision of relevant information, to the relevant user and with the best possible format. With the sudden change in the teaching and learning environment, where there was a massive shift from face-to-face contact to online learning. This was done by bringing every library employee up to speed with transition from physical library services to the virtual service. Different skills e-services skills had to be brushed up, e-tools had to be put fully into used and people had to avail themselves 24/7 for the library mission to sustained. This paper will present the statistical overview of different sections in the E-Resources department, which had to take a leading role in facilitating access to relevant information and ensure that university’s teaching and learning is fully supported.

Global trends in Open Access
Open science initiatives help science to be more efficient, improve research outcomes, and establish public confidence in science through improved transparency. This presentation will examine the global trends in Open Access emerging with the impact of OA policies and analyze South Africa’s Open Access footprint.

As a publisher neutral data provider, Web of Science is able to provide the most complete and trustworthy overview of Open Access publication status and impact so that institutions can align researcher incentives to meet OA publication goals and monitor compliance with OA initiatives.

The presentation will take a data-driven approach to understanding South Africa’s Open Access output, contextualize it with comparison to other countries and look at opportunities to accelerate the transition to open access.

Data analysis as a key step in preparing South Africa for transformational agreements
In March 2017, SANLiC signed the OA2020 Expression of Interest to be part of an international initiative to transform all journals from a subscription model to open access within the framework of current available resources. The premise was that there was more than enough money in the existing system to realize a smooth, swift, and scholarly oriented transition to full Open Access (OA). However, it was acknowledged that some research-intensive consumers of scholarly journals may be required to pay more in a full OA scenario than in the subscription-based status quo. SANLiC members could not afford to blindly rush wholesale into transformative agreements without a clear appraisal of the consequences.

In 2020, with the help of Clarivate Analytics, SANLiC sourced South African research output data for 2014-2019 and analysed the research output trends in relation to research visibility (OA) as well as the associated costs for both reading and publishing. The result was tangible evidence to support strategy choices to further the South African National System of Innovation opens science research agenda.

The findings have helped to inform SANLiC’s framework for transformational agreements with publishers for 2022 and beyond that will incorporate both reading and publishing services.

This presentation will highlight some of the findings and how they were determined

Intembeko, building trusted relationships with ORCID
ORCID is a critical part of the research infrastructure, and is key to consistent attribution and recognition. While ORCID has long provided a mechanism for member institutions to integrate their in-house systems with the ORCID Registry and authoritatively assert researchers’ affiliations and publications, this has proved challenging for many South African institutions. This presentation will briefly look at the intersection between ORCID and common library systems such as DSpace, before introducing a new tool in South Africa — the Intembeko ORCID Hub — that is specifically designed to lower the ORCID integration burden for institutions.

Strategic partnerships and collaborations in the advent of COVID-19
This paper argues that the advent of the Coronavirus pandemic has necessitated the need for libraries to re-evaluate effective communications channels and visibility strategies to bring about change and to sustain key strategic partnerships. The resurgence of COVID-19 has necessitated that libraries offer limited walk-in services and rely more heavily on remote services. However, COVID-19 has also presented opportunities for robust interactions with relevant stakeholders in order to achieve mutual goals and to effectively expand stakeholders’ reach to users who may not necessarily walk inside a library building. Considering the National Library of South Africa’s (NLSA’s) functional mandate of providing equitable access to information, it has therefore become imperative to develop and implement effective stakeholder management strategies to ensure direct stakeholder interactions in order to inspire actions. According to the department responsible for effective government communication, Government Communication and Information Systems (GCIS), government entities need to consider the diverse interests of the broader South African society which are the Rooted Realists, City Seekers, Safely Surbans, Metro Mobiles and Cosmopolitan Capitals. This paper outlines the NLSA’s experiences and lessons learnt with regards to effective management; engaging the right stakeholders in the right way at the right time with the approporiate frequency to achieve the desired outcome while navigating the impact of COVID-19.

Transformational agreements – setting the South African framework
At a Special General Meeting held on 23 June 2021 SANLiC members adopted the following principles with the intention of replacing existing journal reading subscription agreements, which no longer serve the interests of our researchers and the South African National System of Innovation, with agreements that incorporate reading and publishing services. In so doing, we expect to grow our members’ research agenda and the dissemination thereof by negotiating agreements that incorporate the principles listed below.

In this presentation the SANLiC team will review the 16 principles and explain why these 16 were identified as essential for South Africa’s research agenda. It will provide insight into the implications these principles hold for various stakeholders involved in accessing, consuming and publishing scholarly information.

Communicating with institutional stakeholders about transitional open access agreements – the UK experience.
Jisc recommended the adoption of transitional open access agreements (TAs) to UK Higher Education institutions (UKHEIs) in 2017 as a mechanism to control escalating costs associated with the combined cost of subscriptions and open access (OA) publishing and to stimulate rapid growth in the proportion of UK research published OA.

Following the announcement of Plan S this focus on TAs has intensified. Universities and affected researchers concerned about the implications of the new requirements immediately began analysis to underpin important advocacy work.

Participating in TAs has required UK libraries to make strong cases for support from senior institutional leaders and challenged how teams – either within libraries or across different parts of an institution – work together and communicate with researchers about open access publishing and Plan S compliance.

Since 2017 Jisc has supported UKHEIs in the transition to open access by negotiating 30 TAs from a range of publishers that they can opt into as well as creating advocacy materials. This presentation will provide a detailed overview of the guidance materials Jisc prepared to facilitate internal stakeholder communication and summarise key points from a related OA community event organised to enable the sharing of good practice.

The value and process of establishing and nurturing partnerships between librarians and researchers to advance open access – a fishbowl conversation
This interactive, dialog-based session will be jump-started by a conversation among a researcher, a librarian, and a leader at a North American consortium about the value and process of establishing and nurturing partnerships between librarians and researchers to advance open access.

The session will engage the audience in a “fishbowl” (observed) conversation with:

• Maria Frahm-Arp, Executive Director of the Library and Information Centre at the University of Johannesburg and a well-established researcher
• Cossie Ndumela, a librarian at University of Johannesburg
• Ellen Finnie, Director of Shared Collections at University of California/California Digital Library

This experienced triad will launch the session through an initial informal conversation reflecting upon their perspectives on building relationships between librarians and researchers to advance open access. Their thoughts will seed an open dialog with all session participants.

SPA-OPS Project update presentation
Information Power recently completed a report which measured progress during 2020 and 2021 on Open Access agreements between consortia/libraries and publishers. OA agreements are now used around the world in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. During 2020 there was an increase in the number of OA articles published in hybrid journals, which reverses a downward trend in the proportion of total articles published as OA in hybrid journals between 2016 and 2019. There is potential for further growth.

Smaller independent publishers – for example society publishers without a larger publishing partner, university presses, library presses, and small independent commercial presses – face some special challenges due to their scale. This presentation will discuss how library consortia can work more closely with this group of publishers to transition to open access.

The presentation will also discuss the reports recommendation that funders take steps to enable universities to aggregate all their expenditure with publishers via the library. They also encourage publishers who closely link the price of OA agreements to article volume to think carefully about more equitable models

Using the MIT Framework in Library/Publisher Negotiations: Our Experience so Far
The MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts was released in October 2019. Written by the MIT Ad Hoc Task Force on Open Access to MIT’s Research, MIT Faculty Committee on the Library System, and MIT Libraries, it has since been endorsed by nearly 200 organizations. In it we state that scholarship benefits society the most when “it is freely and immediately available to the entire world to access, read, and use; without restriction and for any lawful purpose.” While open access has gained significant momentum, we are still far from the situation where scholarly communications is serving the needs of society as effectively as it should.

With this in mind, the Framework provides clear areas for the Libraries to focus on to improve the situation, specifically in the contracts we sign with publishers – one of our main points of influence in the system. This presentation will describe the Negotiations Team’s experience of using the Framework as a tool in conversations with publishers, things that have worked well, and lessons we have learned, particularly with regards to transformative agreements.

Denmark’s first transformative agreement secured with Elsevier 2021-2024
We initiated the negotiations with Elsevier in October of 2020 with two hard mandates from the governing body of Universities Denmark:

• no further price increases on journals, and
• immediate Open Access to research output from researchers from the subscribing institutions.

On the first mandate: Due to budget cuts the institutions couldn’t accept any further increases on prices for the journals. The second mandate was to emphasize the National Open Access strategy which is a green OA strategy with a maximum of 12 months embargo. We achieved no price increase on the journals for the duration of the contract (2021-2024). And we managed to negotiate a deal where all papers published in all hybrid journals in the Freedom collection and in a few (subscription) journals outside of the Freedom Collection will be published immediately Open Access with no APC paid. And there is no restriction on the number of papers published annually.

The role of libraries to achieve structural Openness and epistemic justice
The prevailing science communication system has showed little success in making science a global, participatory and equitable conversation. At the same time, a very robust ecosystem of science communication has been built in the Latin-American region, one that is intrinsically open, non-commercial and academy-owned. However, this “regional” approach has remained outside the legitimated channels of scholarly communication.

AmeliCA’s and Redalyc’s approach is based on the fact that scholarly communication in control of the academy is a strategy much healthier and sustainable for the development of science and society. Why is it that commercial publishers are a pivotal actor in science communication –in many parts of the world– if the biggest part of activities concerning the generation of knowledge is in the academy?

Now, strategies are emerging that seek to achieve Open Access such as transformative agreements. However, it is important to question: What is the future we envision for the dissemination of science? In whose hands should it be? What is the role of libraries in this context? We are facing a great opportunity to rebuild a system in favor of the development of science and humanity.
So, it is strategic for the research community, universities, libraries, funders to join forces, as well as share and connect individual and institutional efforts to build a cooperative infrastructure that guarantees both, publishing is led by the scholarly community and its openness could be sustainable. All leveraged with technology to find more effective methods of communication and deployment of the knowledge generated by different regions, disciplinary fields or languages.

ReadMetrics, a comprehensive Free and Open Source usage statistics toolkit
ReadMetrics is aiming to be both a complete COUNTER 5 toolkit, as well as a mature tool to extract super fine statistics (individual articles) based on Proxy log files. Both use cases include, data management and visualisation based on the Elastic Stack with Kibana dashboards.

ReadMetrics is designed for a consortial setting (as already used in France by Couperin.org consortium members and Luxemburg consortium), but also works for individual libraries and can be easily deployed in a virtualized container (docker).

More on readmetrics.org

ReadMetrics: deep dive into article-level usage statistics with the National Library of Luxembourg
The analysis of server logs, using, has been undertaken since 2018, using open source components to be bundled in 2021 under the name “ReadMetrics”. The National Library of Luxembourg has undertaken the exact analysis proposed above, but based on server logs from its local proxy server, not from publishers. The two main findings are:

• after deducting multiple downloads by the same user (24 hr session), about 60% of the original usage is left
• after additionally deducting all articles which are published Open Access or for which alternative Open Access versions (such as pre-prints) exist, about 40% of the original usage is left.

The COUNTER projects code of conduct is the current standard by which publishers create and make available usage statistics to libraries. Importantly, COUNTER statistics are limited to the number of article downloads per journal title, and generally do not identify the actual articles. The article based analysis of usage from the “ReadMetrics” tool from server log files shows that this number is too high for the Luxemburg use case. When calculating for example, cost per download, based on the data above, it more than doubles when taking into account duplicate downloads by the same user plus the free Open Access versions of articles, for which access does not need to be purchased from a publisher.

Illustrating the dilemma of Citation Pollution
Citation Pollution refers to citations to articles in questionable (also fraudulent, fake, or inferior) publications. Some of the most prominent examples of questionable science include predatory journals and retracted research (www.retractionwatch.com). Through Citation Pollution, questionable science can corrupt academic evaluation systems, mislead accreditation bodies, damage the professional standing and reputation of universities and scholars, hurt professional disciplines, and lead to wastage of resources. While it is fairly straight-forward to use available scholarly tools and journal lists to choose a reputable title to cite or publish in, complexity arises when it comes to reviewing or assessing lists of references of research reports, theses, or scholarly manuscripts. So far, scholarly support services do not support scholars and other stakeholders to automatically and adequately identify and flag questionable publications. As a result, many authors unknowingly participate in Citation Pollution. What amplifies this problem is the idea of ‘profitable science’ combined with a publish-or-perish publication culture. Scientists must take heed against the risks of simply chasing citations, getting published, and ‘riding the wave’. Using the case of retracted Covid-19 papers, the speaker illustrates the dilemma of Citation Pollution. He also briefly demonstrates a new reporting tool that can automatically check and flag questionable references in manuscripts and research publications.

From Silos to Intersection: Considering the Open Continuum
The different areas of ‘open’ are top of mind for may libraries. From open access to open science, to open infrastructure and open source, each area presents opportunities and challenges. How do we ensure the findability of open access literature? How do we go beyond the PDF and provide access to the underpinnings of research? How do we deliver optimal interoperability of the platforms and services that serve our libraries and its users? And can freely available and modifiable software deliver much needed flexibility in how platforms and services are deployed, managed, and extended?

As we look to address these questions, one thing may be clear: the areas of ‘open’ do not exist in silos, but rather intersect. The findability of literature extends into the findability of related data sets. Our ability to readily collect and disseminate these outputs hinges on our ability to connect disparate applications from different providers. And our ability to manage research outputs in its different formats depends on our ability to extend our library platforms to readily manage research outputs as part of our overall collections.

This presentation will look at the intersection of the areas of open. The presenter will consider how the library may best collect, preserve, disseminate, and manage the totality of research across areas of ‘open’. Specific attention will be paid to the discovery of, and access to, research, open, connected collaboration platforms in support of open science and open source solutions that may best support innovation in library workflows.