OR 2010: day two, part two

day two, session three : sustainability & business operations

Straight from the horse's mouth (the horse in this case being Thorny Staples from DuraSpace): proprietary vs. open source = cash vs. code. You have to either pay, or participate. Or, it seems from this collection of presentations, perhaps even both. Certainly, I think we're all wondering how or when repositories will become sustainable. I don't have much to say about this, other than that I'd be interested in seeing a chart comparing the level of investment in institutional repositories and data curation to the level of spending on e-resources. I know how expensive e-resources are. I don't think anyone has put numbers on the true cost to pay or participate.


day two, session four : open access policy

A very interesting presentation from the University Corporation from Atmospheric Research. She had fascinating images for us to see. Who doesn't enjoy looking at satellite images of our world? particularly at such an international conference.

Also very interesting because when they explored mandating open access at UCAR, library head Mary Marlino called the two largest publishers of UCAR's research output (a professional organization and a union) and talked to them about open access and how UCAR was moving in that direction. She said it was a difficult conversation, but in the end she got results -- a better relationship with them, certainly, and a 6-month embargo period instead of 2 or 5 years. A fine example of how conversation can achieve results.

As an aside - I had a conversation earlier today about an apparent debate regarding whether this field is young or not. I was surprised that anyone would be foolish enough to say this is a mature field.

It won't be a mature field until open access isn't a scary, bad word that is often cause for argument; when researchers publish in open access repositories as a matter of course; when we have not just theoretical standards, but tested best practices in place for digital preservation. Until then, we're still just toddling around, at best.