Open Access – a driver for dramatic changes for academic libraries | Bjørnshauge | ScieCom Info

Use the link to access the full text article opening as follows: "Academic libraries, librarians and library associations have been and still are one of the driving forces in the Open (Access) movement.  During the latest years other (more important) stakeholders have entered the scene. Universities, university associations, research funders, research councils and their associations, governments and supranational organizations have now gone beyond signatures on various declarations and are implementing Open Access mandates and policies. The recent developments in the UK, the expected developments in the European Commission and later  in the member states will contribute and strengthen the process towards making open access the default in scholarly publishing and in a few years we could reach the tipping point where 50% of the annual output of research publications will be open access. The announcement last month from the SCOAP3 consortium in high energy physics revealed their agreements with publishers. The agreements will reduce the article processing charges  (APCs) significantly and furthermore the deal will have the effect that the journals that won the tender will be taken away from the big deals and that revenue generated via hybrid open access will be recycled into reduced licensing fees (to avoid double dipping). This is the first real step in the decomposition of the big deals. The momentum for open access will in the coming years change the game significantly. It may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen. How this will unfold is difficult to predict, but at some point it will or ought to have significant impact on the operations of academic libraries.One of the driving forces here will be a much closer look at the costs of operating academic libraries and how individual libraries work and how they work or should work in common."