Apologies for lack of alt-text here. - I believe the presentation slides will be shared along with the recording.
#beyondpaywalls

Beyond Paywalls: Librarians Re-imagining Open Access The Open Access movement has always focused on the important work of removing paywall barriers to accessing publicly funded academic work, and while this work is still ongoing, are...

Luckily the session has been recorded - will probably need to re-watch before I tackle Joanne's survey!
If you are a #librarian with experience of #openaccess then please do watch the recording (once shared) & fill in the survey to support this work (open until end of April)
#beyondpaywalls

How do we support/ensure #attribution in #openaccess?
What are the technical or infrastructure barriers?
Does limiting reuse of content by machine-learning and AI tools go against the ethos of #openness?
.. So many interesting provocations in this session, I can't keep up! #beyondpaywalls

Accessibility and machine-readability of #openaccess content - enabling OCR and indexing for search and discovery, helping future use and reuse of research... but also potentially feeding plagiarism and piracy, including via AI tools!
#beyondpaywalls

Libraries play an important role in supporting academic freedom - what is our role in preventing censorship or 'cancelling' of researchers or their research? Does #OpenAccess make this easier, or more difficult? #beyondpaywalls

Open Accessibility and Censorship - if research is #openaccess and #accessible it can more readily be disseminated and preserved globally, even if the prevailing political winds are leaning towards book-bans and removing content #beyondpaywalls

Does addressing #accessibilty as well as #openness help support #bibliodiversity? - Accessible Open Access can open up participation in research beyond the global north. Eg outputs are not just more widely available (because there are no paywalls) but can be more easily translated. #beyondpaywalls

The Impact Factor Debate: Assessing Journal Prestige and Research Quality There used to be times when authors used to say that they had their research article published in a high-impact journal. They would often tell their friends and colleagues about the impact factor of

#openaccess should break down the propensity for researchers to seek out 'prestige publishers' for their research outputs - but only if academic institutions reject prestige-based metrics like Journal Impact Factor see: eikipub.com/index.php/le...
#beyondpaywalls

Read the Declaration | DORA The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recognizes the need to improve the ways in which the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated.

What about barriers related to prestige and power?
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment advocates for separating out research assessment from notions of prestige
Research should be assessed on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal it is published in.
#beyondpaywalls

Removing Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions not only lifts financial and technological barriers, it also lifts accessibility barriers - no restrictions on number of concurrent users/readers or downloads, prints, copies etc. or the software that can access the content #beyondpaywalls

Open Accessibility enables machine-readability & supporting navigation by automated systems as well as humans - eg. screenreader software.
It also enable outputs to reach their true audience, not just those who can perceive/operate/understand it, machine read it or pay for it.
#beyondpaywalls

Open Accessibility - born #accessible by default!
Perceivable, operable, understandable, robust & interoperable with assistive technology
Not just for those who are 'print disabled' but for everyone to be able to customise their reading experience
#beyondpaywalls

"Diversity is a moral imperative – anyone who believes in social justice and equality of opportunity must also see the need to address inequity and injustice in the workplace." - diversitymanifesto.wordpress.com
#beyondpaywalls

Rationale for Creating Accessible Content - APLN Accessible content should be the norm. This resource offers discussion around the reasoning for accessibility and inclusion, including the betterment of society and the business case.

Libraries test for #accessibility of third-party resources eg. www.libraryaccessibility.org
It is not just a legal requirement, but the ethical thing to do - apln.ca/rationale-fo...
#beyondpaywalls

There are tools and software that can be used to assess the #accessibility of research outputs and online content. Some of these are embedded in the software we use everyday (like Microsoft 365 products) others are available as add-on dev tools eg Lighthouse #beyondpaywalls

Do we consider #accessibility for #openaccess content such as Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) in institutional repositories? #GreenOA
Do we assess whether #openaccess content hosted by third parties (e.g. publishers) is accessible?
What about research outputs like datasets & code?
#beyondpaywalls

Important legislation regarding #digitalaccessibility for websites and downloadable content:
- UK Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/85...
- USA Section508 www.section508.gov
- EU Web Accessibility Directive web-directive.eu
#beyondpaywalls

Moving onto #accessibility, there are 3 important standards that need to be considered when it comes to ebooks:
- WCAG www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/
- EPUB Accessibility 1.1 www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y...
- PDF U/A pdfa.org/resource/pdf...
#beyondpaywalls

Do "Pay to publish" models encourage publishers to churn out low-quality outputs? #predatorypublishing
How does 'the academy' assess the quality of published research, does #openness get taken into consideration when it comes to reward & recognition? #beyondpaywalls

Authors also raise concerns about the role of #GenAI in the research ecosystem and the risk that #openaccess research can be used to train LLMs - real concern over rights and ownership of intellectual property here; authors want CC-BY not CC0 #beyondpaywalls

There's also a risk that people won't value what is available for free... do people assume #openaccess research is lower quality that research behind #paywalls - is this also part of the #prestige mindset #beyondpaywalls

Some researchers also point to a lack of benefit for participating in #openresearch & #openaccess - publishing OA does not necessarily help them in their academic career.. there is still a prestige mindset about where to publish #beyondpaywalls

#GoldOA routes are expensive! Article & Book Processing Charges are only affordable to a minority of well-funded researchers or institutions that tend to be in the global north - this means a lack of equitable access to OA & a lack of diversity in OA outputs #beyondpaywalls

But there are concerns about the current ecosystem for #openaccess e.g. the administrative burden on authors, libraries & universities in enabling #GreenOA deposits in an institutional repository that needs to be maintained long term... including #metadata to support discovery #beyondpaywalls

Removing paywalls also means that readers don't have to be part of a HE institution in order to access research - this supports the economically disadvantaged and means that publicly funded research produces publicly available outputs #beyondpaywalls

Removing paywalls to research via #openaccess enables authors to retain rights over their work (rather than signing them over to a publisher) & it also removes the issue of embargoes or waiting for access. #beyondpaywalls

Berlin Declaration Berlin Declaration

#openaccess is usually focussed on author(s) and right holder(s) removing paywalls so that users have free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to research
See: openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration
#beyondpaywalls

@copim.bsky.social's WP5 Accessibility group are proposing that if a book is not fully accessible then it cannot be termed fully open access even if it is 'free-to-read' -but accessibility is not just about complying with legislation such as the European Accessibility Act (June 2025) #beyondpaywalls

@copim.bsky.social work closely with publishers to develop community-led Open Access book publishing, they also work with libraries and librarians (who often have different requirements to publishers!)
#beyondpaywalls

Accessibility

This session will look at barriers to access, such as accessibility issues, power imbalances and censorship, as part of open access. - A recording will be shared so keep an eye on copim.pubpub.org/accessibility if you want to contribute to this research via the survey
#beyondpaywalls