Improving Open Access Discovery for Academic Library Users

"Noteworthy findings from this study

1. Library staff wanted OA publications that were representative of the research published in the Netherlands. They primarily got this content from institutional repositories (IRs) but wanted to add OA publications from small Dutch publishers to their library collections more easily.

2. OA publications were the most common type of open resource that users searched for. Users did not describe them as very easy to search for or access, which may be partly due to users’ uneven knowledge about OA.

3. Library staff’s outreach and instruction had been primarily focused on increasing users’ awareness of publishing OA. Users needed additional instruction on discovering, evaluating, and using these new types of publications.

4. Users’ most common response to encountering access barriers was to look for an OA version. In general, they preferred access options that were free to them, could be taken immediately, and did not require help from another person.

5. Enhancing the discoverability of OA publications required reliable and consistent metadata beyond the basics, including persistent identifiers, licensing and versioning information, and peer-review status.

6. Library staff called for more transparency and collaboration around metadata standards and system interoperability to make OA publications easily visible and help keep them top of mind with users."