Anna Vernon
Jisc Collections
Anna is Jisc Collections Services Manager. She joined Jisc Collections in 2015 from the British Library and has a background in IP law, negotiation and Licensing. She has responsibility for ensuring that Jisc Collections, as a library consortium, provides the highest quality of service to libraries in the higher and further education sectors and operates as effectively and efficiently as possible. She leads the negotiations to ensure the agreements meet the requirements of UK HE and support the implementation of research funder mandates. She plans and implements the schedules and processes for selection and renewal of Jisc Collections’ agreements ensuring they are concluded on time and to the greatest advantage of libraries in higher and further education. In addition, she manages the team of licensing managers and licensing specialists.
All Sessions by Anna Vernon
Chapter V: Barcelona 20/6/2018
11:00 - 11:35
Negotiating our way through the transition
Jisc Collections negotiates for digital content on behalf of the UK higher education sector, seeking the best possible pricing and licensing to save institutions time, money and effort. Since the 2012 Report of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, on ‘Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications’ (The Finch report) in the UK and the resultant policy change to support a transition to open access, Jisc Collections has been negotiating agreements to include offsetting arrangements in order to reduce the total cost of ownership (Lawson, 2015). In an attempt to move away from the publishers’ hybrid model, offset agreements are an attempt to link article publishing charges (APCs) with subscription charges. They look to increase the former while the latter reduces. Offset agreements seek to do this in a variety of ways, some reduce the APC charge, some allow unlimited OA publishing for a capped amount and others provide a refund or publishing credit. Offsetting is therefore advancement of the highly criticised hybrid model (Geschuhn & Stone, 2017). This presentation will present an overview of the offsetting arrangements in place in the UK and the impact of the UK OA mandates on negotiations. It will highlight some of the major challenges and successes of these new business models, for example, the SpringerCompact agreement, which came into effect in January 2016. It will discuss these offset deals in light of recent literature from other European countries, e.g. BIBSAM in Sweden, and the Universities UK ‘Monitoring the Transition to OA’ report published in December 2017. The paper will examine how far these agreements contribute towards a full transition to open access, discussing lessons learned and concluding with recommendations for consortia, libraries and publishers.
