Perceptions, preferences of scholarly publishing in open access routes. A survey of academic librarians in Nigeria
| Date | 13 March 2017 |
| Published date | 13 March 2017 |
| Pages | 152-169 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-03-2017-0015 |
| Author | Ebikabowei Emmanuel Baro,Monica Eberechukwu Eze |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library & information services |
Perceptions, preferences of
scholarly publishing in open
access routes
A survey of academic librarians in Nigeria
Ebikabowei Emmanuel Baro
University Library, Federal University, Otuoke, Nigeria, and
Monica Eberechukwu Eze
College Librarian, Enugu State College of Education (Technical),
Enugu, Nigeria
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to know the various factors librarians consider while selecting open
access (OA) journal for publication, and to know the challenges librarians face with OA journal publishing.
Design/methodology/approach –Online questionnaire was designed to collect data using
SurveyMonkey software from 335 academic librarians in 57 institutions (Universities, Polytechnics and
Colleges of Education) in Nigeria.
Findings –The ndings of the study revealed that majority of the academic librarians are aware of the gold
and green publishing routes, while the majority of academic librarians are not aware of the diamond
publishing route. The study also revealed that when considering where to publish, reputation and impact
factor of journal were rated as very important among the factors that inform their choice of OA. The study
further revealed that academic librarians have little or no knowledge about the existence of institutional
repositories in their institutions, and only a few actual use institutional repositories and ResearchGate to
self-archive their publications. The majority of the academic librarians agreed that author fees (Article
Processing Charges) and low impact factor of journal are barriers to publishing in OA journals. Training on
OA publishing is recommended for librarians to increase their knowledge and condence to discuss OA with
faculty members in future.
Practical implications –Knowledge of authors’ attitude toward OA publishing models will help OA
advocates focus on the factors that are meaningful that are raised in this study.
Originality/value –The study is an original research work that investigated academic librarians’
perception and engagement with OA publishing as they lead the OA campaign in their institutions.
Keywords Nigeria, Academic librarians, Tertiary institutions, Institutional repositories,
Open access routes, ResearchGate
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The activity most commonly used to evaluate the result of a research is the publication of the
resulting article in a specialized journal either in Open-Access (OA) journal or
subscription-based journal. In the context of this research, attention will be focused on OA
journals. OA, in the context of scholarly publishing, is a term widely used to refer to
unrestricted online access to articles published in scholarly journals. OA publishing has been
This work was funded by Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Abuja, Nigeria. The authors
sincerely appreciate the funding agency for their support.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-5348.htm
ILS
118,3/4
152
Received 6 March 2017
Revised 8 April 2017
Accepted 21 April 2017
Informationand Learning Science
Vol.118 No. 3/4, 2017
pp.152-169
©Emerald Publishing Limited
2398-5348
DOI 10.1108/ILS-03-2017-0015
widely heralded as a potential solution to the so-called “serials crises” (Young, 2009;
Willinsky, 2009). Because OA publications are substitutes, authors can afford to comparison
shop, seeking out only the very best deals and patronizing these exclusively.
Discussion has previously surfaced about OA journals. OA journals can be dened as
serial titles that are freely accessible on the internet or are not subscription based. The term
OA was introduced:
• by the Budapest Open Access Initiative (February 2002);
• by the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (June 2003); and
• by the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to knowledge in the Sciences and
Humanities (October 2003) (Warlick and Vaughan, 2007).
Their common ground is referred to as the BBB Denition (Suber, 2013). The BBB Denition
is identical to the denition of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Budapest Open Access
Initiative (2012, p. 1), dened Open Access as peer-reviewed research literature to mean:
freely available on the public internet; permitting any users to read, download, copy,
distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of these articles; crawl them for indexing; pass
them as data to software; or use them for any other lawful purpose, without nancial, legal or
technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The
only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this
domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be
properly acknowledged and cited.
OA articles gain more exposure because they are cited as a source of information by other
authors on the internet (Malakoff, 2003). In OA publishing, a journal article is made available free
for all on the web by the publisher at the time of publication. It is typically made possible after the
author pays thousands of naira in publication fees, thereby shifting the cost from the reader to the
researcher. An alternative to the subscription model of journal publishing is the OA journal
model, which typically involves a publication charge being paid by the author. The online
distribution of individual articles and academic journals then takes place without charge to
readers and libraries. Most OA journals remove all the nancial, technical and legal barriers that
limit access to academic materials to paying customers (Case, 2003).
Identifying factors involved in author decisions to publish in OA journal helps illuminate
issues that may encourage or discourage author support of OA publishing models. Further
understanding of these issues can assist the efforts to improve authors’ perceptions of and
condence in OA publications. Much of the literature about OA publishing focuses on the
relative importance of specic issues such as impact factor, publication speed and author
fees. Powell et al. (2002) maintains that research and publication help individuals to think
critically and analytically. The scholarly community, in general, is in general agreement that
scholarly research output should be of high quality; published through a solid peer-review
process in an acceptable format; and accessible in the form of recorded sources in print and
electronic formats, such as books, chapters in books, conference papers and proceedings,
articles in scholarly journals, theses and dissertations, patents and trademarks, and creative
works such as performance and exhibitions of the visual arts among others (Ocholla et al.,
2012).
Journal price increases have far outpaced increases in library budgets, and this has eroded
libraries’ buying power signicantly. Consequently, academic libraries have been forced to
cancel subscriptions or shift fund from other areas of their budgets to purchase a smaller
number of high-priced journal titles. In most academic libraries, costly Science, Technology
and Medicine journals are consuming an ever-increasing share of library budgets. This is
having a negative impact on other acquisitions, such as research monographs, textbooks and
153
Academic
librarians
To continue reading
Request your trial