FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

THE INFORMATION CRISIS AFFECTS US ALL – SOLUTIONS WILL COME FROM WORKING TOGETHER

2022-04-06 -

THE INFODEMIC

We are living in the information age1, but also suffering from an information crisis that the World Health Organization has labeled an infodemic². To counter this, we are constantly being told to seek reliable and authoritative information. Libraries have a crucial role to play in connecting people with this information. But when we try to do that, we find that it is frequently hidden behind a paywall. This is true even of publicly-funded research that we, as taxpayers, have already paid for but must pay for again to read the results3. The costs of doing so are often eye-wateringly expensive, despite the fact the academics who peer-review the work and edit the journals where it is published, are rarely paid for doing so.

OPEN ACCESS

Open access publishing was supposed to be the solution, but frequently this just shifts the cost burden to the researcher, increasing the cost of the research we are funding, so we are paying either way. Where is all this money going? In many cases, straight to the shareholders of publishing houses who have managed to create a research ecosystem skewed heavily in their favour, where researchers are rewarded for publishing in high prestige journals with ever-increasing article processing charges4 and subscription fees. This ecosystem is now so well entrenched that it has led to the evolution of predatory journals that, like parasites in biological ecosystems, try to dupe authors and scam the system5.

FIGHTING BACK

Some academics have fought back, taking control of the publishing process for themselves6. But as the journals they create are new and untested, publishing in them doesn’t have the academic cachet of more established journals. With academics’ careers relying on the perceived quality of the journals they publish in; this creates perverse incentives to keep a system going that in the longterm only serves the interests of the publishers.

LIBRARIANS JOIN THE FIGHT

Complementing attempts by the academic community to fight back against rapacious publishers, librarians have begun to develop the infrastructure that will support their efforts. For example, the CAUL Open Education Resources Collective recently announced a new project aiming to provide a publishing platform for open access textbooks7.

WE ALL SUFFER

Academic librarians will be very familiar with all of this. But those of us working in public libraries might be astonished at the scale of the problem8. Our customers however are increasingly being expected to take responsibility for the veracity of their information sources. Recent scenes of protests in Wellington and other parts of the country suggest that there might be room for improvement here. But our ability to rely on accurate information rests on our ability to access that information, and if it is hidden behind a paywall then that presents a significant barrier.

WORKING TOGETHER

This is a particular problem for public libraries who are rightly unwilling to use ratepayers’ money to pay for access to expensive databases of full text peer-reviewed research articles, but that doesn’t mean that their customers wouldn’t benefit from accessing them. Licensing agreements (another tool the publishing industry uses to skew things in their favour) usually prevent universities from making their electronic resources available online to people who aren’t staff, students, or alumni. Some universities allow walk-in access, which allows members of the public to come into the library and use those resources on-site legitimately, legally, and within the terms of their licenses.

THREATS TO WALK-IN ACCESS

COVID may have curtailed some of this access, with academic libraries becoming more sealed off

from the public for reasons of social distancing. This is understandable, but New Zealand universities, unlike those in many other countries, have a long and proud tradition of allowing the public in. We should make sure we return this right to the public as soon as it is safe to do so. Budget pressure could also have an effect, with universities concentrating their resources on their own staff and students, though this should be resisted as public access serves universities’ interests in other ways. Today’s walk-in customer could be tomorrow’s student, and they are certainly likely to be strong advocates for the university. A better-informed public is likely to lead to wider support for education and research more generally.

BEYOND ACCESS

Not only should this walk-in service be offered, but it should be actively promoted. Public librarians should be reaching out to their local tertiary institutions so that:

■ they understand what is on offer and pass that knowledge on to their customers,

■ they can work together to strengthen the relationships between public and academic libraries in their communities

■ they can unite to advocate for changes that will make it easier for everyone to access reliable and authoritative information, including primary literature reporting the results of publicly funded research.

A BITTER IRONY

Ironically, one side-effect of the recent protests outside Parliament was to close public access to the National Library and a branch of Wellington City Libraries, whose job it is to provide reliable and authoritative information. A double irony is that this point was never noted in the media coverage.

CHALLENGES AND DISCUSSION POINTS

For academic librarians – Are you providing walk-in access to the public? If so, do you actively promote this service? If this has been affected by COVID, what could you do to mitigate that? Do you have a plan to resume when it’s safe to do so? What other pressures are walk-in services under, and what can you do to resist them?

For public librarians – Do you know what walkin services (if any) your local academic libraries offer? Do you know who the key people are in those libraries? Are you already working with them on shared services or other mutually beneficial projects? If so, how could you build on that? If not, how could you start doing that?

For other librarians – Where does your library fit into this? Are there services you could be offering more widely? Are there services that other parts of the library sector could be offering to your customers?

For publishers – How would you respond to the issues raised here? How can the library sector help you manage the competing interests that influence your decisions? How can libraries and publishers work together to make the information you publish more widely and freely available, without damaging your bottom line?

For everyone – Find out more about this issue. IFLA has lots of resources on this topic9. Talk to your colleagues about it and connect with those in other library sectors local to you. LIANZA can help to connect you with the right people.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

THE INFORMATION CRISIS AFFECTS US ALL – SOLUTIONS WILL COME FROM WORKING TOGETHER

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FREEDOM OF INFORMATIO­N

THE INFORMATIO­N CRISIS AFFECTS US ALL – SOLUTIONS WILL COME FROM WORKING TOGETHER

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from New Zealand

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

THE INFORMATION CRISIS AFFECTS US ALL – SOLUTIONS WILL COME FROM WORKING TOGETHER