Author and library outreach

Here we detail general outreach. However, direct outreach to libraries that you hope will support you is vital to spreading awareness of your scheme and gaining hew support. This section covers suggestions and templates for this sort of direct outreach. This can be done via your authors, by asking them to ask their own institution, and/or by direct library outreach. While author outreach to their own institutions can be extremely important, in our experience, direct outreach to libraries has seen the most impact.

With a model of this kind there is another consideration for library outreach; where there is a clear distinction, do you contact the scholarly communications librarian who may oversee an OA budget, or do you contact the subject librarian relevant to the backlist package you are offering? I.e., are you asking them to invest directly in an open access initiative with a backlist as a sweetener, or are you asking them to purchase books for their collection, with funds that will go towards open access? Ideally you would contact both. Both approaches are outlined below.