Open Insights: An Interview with Demmy Verbeke of KU Leuven

"Demmy Verbeke was trained as a Neo-Latinist, receiving his PhD in Classics from KU Leuven in 2005, and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University (2006-7), the University of Warwick (2007-9) and KU Leuven (2009-12). He joined KU Leuven Libraries in 2012, where he is Head of Artes and plays a central role in organising library services for the Arts and Humanities. As a member of the management team, Demmy also contributes to the strategic development and operational management of KU Leuven Libraries as a whole, with a particular focus on (library support for) research and scholarly communication. He is a strong believer in Fair Open Access and acts as section editor for the Open Library of Humanities.  

OLH: Many thanks for agreeing to talk to us, Demmy. KU Leuven has been a big supporter of open access. What drives you to push for open scholarship?

DV: I have to admit that my interest was initially mercantile, in the sense that I hoped (and still hope) that OA will help to address the budget crisis in academic libraries. When I started in the Arts Faculty Library in Leuven in 2012, the library was in dire straits. The cost of subscriptions was bigger than the collection budget of the library. That is problematic for any type of library, but especially for an Arts Faculty Library, since the expectation still is that its core business is to buy books, not journals. But we did not even have enough money to pay the journal subscriptions, let alone for buying monographs!..."