UKB/AGUB (NRW) conference report

On 22-23 June 2006 representatives of the Dutch Association of the thirteen university libraries and the National Library of the Netherlands (UKB) and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Universitätsbibliotheken of Nordrhein-Westfalia (AGUB) met at the Radboud University Library in Nijmegen. The tradition to meet and exchange views, share experiences and further promote cooperation between university libraries in Germany and the Netherlands, was established in 1989 in Bochum.
The two chosen themes for this conference were open access and library staff development.


The conference participants: front row, from left to right: Erda Lapp, Karin Michalke, José Frijns, Maria Heijne, Albert Bilo, Ria Paulides, Graham Jefcoate.
Back row, from left to right: Hans Geleijnse, Ronald Schmidt, Jeroen Winkels, Inge Angevaare, Ulrike Eich (barely visible behind her is Adri Horsten of Stern), Pieter Daalmans, Herbert Spille, Jutta Heller, John Gilbert, Peter te Boekhorst, Werner Reinhardt, Ulrich Korwitz, Tjeu Keulers, Wim van Drimmelen, Joachim Kreische, Norbert Lossau, Peter van Laarhoven, Dick van Zaane, Paul Soetaert.
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The impact of open access on university libraries
After a welcome address by Dr. Jeroen Winkels, Vice-Chairman of the Radboud University Board, and further introductory notes by host Graham Jefcoate and by session chair Maria Heijne of UKB, Hans Geleijnse (Director of Library and IT services, Tilburg University), kicked off the conference with a presentation on open access to institutional repositories, with specific reference to the situation in the Netherlands.


Dr. Jeroen Winkels

Geleijnse's starting point was the view that providing open access to institutional repositories is core business for university libraries. To define the area of open access, Geleijnse quoted a number of international organizations involved in promoting open access to publicly funded research data, such as SPARC. In line with the recent EU Study on the economic and technical evolution of the scientific publication markets in Europe, he quoted Elsevier as stating that 'Open Access does not yet affect our business or profits'.
Unlike Germany, the Netherlands have developed a national network of institutional repositories, DARE(net), linking thirteen digital academic repositories, developed in cooperation with SURF, the Dutch higher education and research partnership organization for network services and information and communications technology). In 2005 the 'Cream of science' website was proudly launched. DARE hopes to reach the milestone of 150,000 publications in the near future.


Hans Geleijnse

The author is the key
Geleijnse stressed that in order to make Open Access work, it is imperative that authors become convinced of the advantages of depositing their material in the repositories:

• Repositories should save the researcher time, as libraries supply metadata; [Reporter's comment: are libraries willing to supply this service? In recent UKB discussions librarians were reluctant to take on this time-consuming task and rather hoped that authors would supply the metadata themselves.]
• Libraries should supply additional services such as dynamic publication lists;
• As all DARE material is archived in the e-Depot of the Dutch National Library, the material is guaranteed permanent access;

to which the conference audience added:

• Repositories offer the important advantage of storing not only the end result (the publication), but the vast amounts of research data as well.

Problems
As always, obstacles to Open Access can be identified as well. To name just a few:

• the problem of validation: what is the status of any work in the repository as multiple versions are stored;
• the problem of academic status: renowned journals enhance authors' reputations; as yet, repositories can boast no such prestige;
• the repositories are expensive to operate. Where will libraries find the resources?;
• copyright issues. Generally publishers allow for post-prints to be deposited (the last version of an article submitted after review), but not for published versions to be deposited.

The future of open access
Geleijnse does not expect Open Access to 'change the world' just yet. However, there are 600 institutional repositories around the world by now, supported by organizations like DFG and NWO. As the repositories gain sufficient critical mass, they may begin to change the world of scientific publication. But Geleijnse stressed that only the research community can change the scientific publication market, libraries can do no more than facilitate desired developments.

Case studies from Germany
Ulrike Eich (Director, University Library, Technical University Aachen) outlined Aachen's experiences with open access. Aachen university dealt with the problem of validation by setting up two separate systems: the central university server for publications recommended by faculty members, and a second server for ancillary material such as pre- and postprints.

Norbert Lossau (Director, University Library, Bielefeld) reported on a bold step his library has taken: Bielefeld publishes whatever the author wishes in its repository, without checking with the publisher. Two versions are stored: the printed version with the journal's layout and a simple text version. Upon express request by a publisher, the first version can be deleted, but this hardly ever happens.
With a tinge of jealousy, a Dutch colleague commented that in Germany the regard for copyright protection is not as well developed as in the Netherlands.


The Open Access panel: from left to right Ulrike Eich, Norbert Lossau, Maria Heijne and Hans Geleijnse.

Discussion on Open Access
As it is impossible to render the discussion in full, below is a selection of relevant comments:

• Traditionally, publishers have played three key roles: a) aggregation; b) evaluation; and c) dissemination. In an open access future, these roles could become separated. Dissemination by institutional repositories could become a service rendered free of charge. But peer review will remain essential and must, somehow, be paid for.
• The prime reason for authors to publish, is their wish to strenghten their scientific reputation. It is as yet unclear how Open Access can compete with the reputation of renowned scientific journals in this regard.
• The Technical University of Delft helps authors organize their own work process by offering facilities to store and safekeep their complete work flow, including the primary research data. Thus the repository becomes the platform where the research process is shared; depositing the final result is then an easy step. Lossau: "Libraries must come to the researcher's desktop instead of them coming to us."
• It is imperative that libraries actively seek the support of researchers and university boards in developing Open Access. This may take quite some time. For the near future a hybrid situation is expected, where Open Access and traditional publishing models will live side by side.
• Some disciplines are more prone to accepting Open Access than others - in the first category biology is mentioned, the humanities are more reticent to accept Open Access.
• Interoperability is vital for the long-term success of Open Access, as it facilitates search and retrieval. The pan-European DRIVER project is intended to further this cause.
• Libraries are traditionally good at organizing and classifying information. This is what they should keep doing.
• On the author pay model: it is not expected that the so-called author pay model will become the business model of the future. In addition, whether the author (or rather, his institution) pays or the library is not really the issue. The real issue is whether the publication is charged (pre-payment) or access is charged (post-payment). Some participants feel that the costs should be divided between producer and user.

New challenges - do we need new staff?
On the second day of the conference it was up to chair Albert Bilo (AGUB) to qualify the somewhat provocative session title: hiring new staff on a large scale is, obviously, out of the question, if only because Dutch and German labour laws prohibit firing staff and budgets do not increase [slides]. Therefore, the real issue is whether libraries and their staff are equipped to handle today's electronic and internet challenges. Which skills do we have, which skills need developing - and how do we develop them? Are staff development programmes the answer? As Korwitz made clear later in the session, structured personnel development interviews are common practice in the Netherlands, but in Germany there is still quite a way to go.

Trust-based supervisor/employee discussions
Ulrich Korwitz (Director, German National Library of Medicine, ZB Med, Cologne) started off by changing the title of his presentation, which had been announced as 'Personnel appraisal interviews - a systematic approach'. He stressed that the personnel development programme his library embarked on two years ago has two distinct aspects which are strictly separated: the personnel appraisal interview in which judgements are passed and targets are set on the one hand, and a trust-based, private supervisor/employee discussion on the other hand.
These interviews are unstructured, strictly private, and the report is not added to the personnel file of the employee, but only kept for reference by the parties involved. Employees are encouraged to speak freely about their work situation, their perception of their tasks and how they perform them, and their work satisfaction. They are also asked to reflect on the supervisor's role. Supervisors in turn are being trained especially for these interviews; they learn how to listen actively without passing judgement and without giving instructions how to deal with problems. In this way, the culture of the organization becomes trust-based, and this affects all other aspects of the library.
Korwitz's audience wondered how time-consuming this programme was and whether the results were worth the investment. Obviously, there could be no clear-cut answer to this question: the outcome is difficult to measure. It was, however, agreed that small teams are a prerequisite to such a labour-intensive development programme.

How to deal with an ageing workforce
Jefcoate touched upon another issue that confronts the labour market in general but libraries in particular: people live longer and work longer. Does this mean that libraries must make revolutionary changes with a workforce of (quote unquote) greying, inflexible, introverted bookworms?
Jefcoate invited his audience to look beyond the cliché picture and take a closer look at the opportunities a mature workforce offers. Some studies show that the over-40s are less likely to be off sick, and are more highly motivated and productive. Their reputed resistance to change may in some cases be well-founded, Jefcoate suggested, as they may have seen it all before in their long careers. Managers are challenged to come up with sound arguments to bring their ageing staff on board, but they may well be worth the effort.


host Graham Jefcoate


A contrary view: people do not change easily
Joachim Kreische (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf) presented a statement on behalf of Dr. Irmgard Siebert, who was scheduled to attend the meeting but had to cancel at the very last moment. Kreische introduced his Director's views on personnel development as a minority statement. Indeed, it was Siebert's premise that we shouldn't expect too much from personnel development programmes. People cannot change easily. Managers have to make do with what they have; it is their job to make the right combination between people and tasks.

Building a dream team
José Frijns (Director of the Free University Library, Amsterdam) presented her own situation as a case study. [presentation to follow] She seemed to have taken Jefcoate's advice seriously when she advocated investing time and energy in the 50-55 age group. These people are trained librarians with similar skills who cannot easily find another place in the job market. Therefore, they are a group that is very motivated to stay. Libraries need them for their knowledge and their managerial skills. It is all a matter of making a good fit between the person and the task. And, Frijns added, giving people influence is the ultimate motivator.
Frijns made two other suggestions: a) to hire students because they know our customers best of all; and b) to hire outside experts to bring the necessary state-of-the-art (innovative) expertise into library projects.

Organizational culture of permanent change
Session chair Albert Bilo, finally, stressed that satisfaction at work is a very different thing from comfort at work. When people get older, their capacity for innovation with all its inherent uncertainties tends to decrease. Yet, libraries need people who anticipate and initiate. Bilo advocated furthering an organizational culture that is geared toward permanent change. A change-oriented attitude is much more important than specific technical skills. [slides].

Discussion on personnel development
A few highlights:

• Yes, we need new staff, but we do not need librarians. Rather, we need people with (a) subject knowledge, (b) experience in teaching, and (c) experience in research.
• We need to work on our image in the labour market. As long as the general public thinks of libraries as dusty old paper warehouses, we will not attract the young, IT-oriented professionals we need. Therefore, the National Library of the Netherlands has developed new recruitment tactics, a new approach to labour market communication. We need optimism in our marketing efforts, pride in what we do as libraries.
• It is important that we find people with library experience who do not necessarily have IT expertise themselves but who can effectively work with IT-people.
• To find the necessary expertise, we need to look beyond the boundaries of the library sector and network with others, such as the IT-sector.
• Developing concrete projects between different departments is the best way to enhance staff flexibility.
• In Delft all employees are required to participate in temporary project teams. This also increases staff flexibility.

Conclusion
At the end of the conference everyone praised the Radboud University Library for their perfect organizational skills and a lovely conference dinner at the Heyendael mansion. Specifically, thanks, flowers and chocolates were due to organizers Léon Stapper and Valerie Smits of the University Library.
Plans were made for a return visit to Germany in the not too distant future.

Inge Angevaare, UKB staff, 30 June 2006
Photographs: Eefje Stapper, Arnhem


Sponsored by Stern Verlag e.K. and Schulz Speyer.


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