NASIG 2021

In 2020, LYRASIS Research conducted a survey of our members to better understand predominantly United States (U.S.) institutional attitudes towards open content, including open access scholarship. The survey presented several findings indicating that U.S. institutions cannot conform to the same OA models and strategies as their international counterparts. The survey also indicated that a significant portion of U.S. institutions cannot participate in transformative agreements, at least in their current definition. The LYRASIS Content and Scholarly Communication Initiatives team incorporated these findings into their negotiation strategies, most notably with their most recent Springer Nature renewal. This presentation will outline the findings of the survey, as well as their implications for future US OA initiatives. After reviewing the survey results, presenters will discuss LYRASIS’ most recent Springer Nature negotiations and their creative approaches to moving monetary resources from closed to open collections, first with the Duke University Press journal Demography, and then with OA ebooks centered around the United Nations Sustainability Goals. LYRASIS was able to introduce OA into their group’s negotiations in a way that encouraged and received participation from institutions of different sizes, missions, and research output, thus expanding the definition of the transformative agreement.