Discussing accessibility with small publishers

The current situation for academic librarians tasked with content acquisition is changing very fast, and has multiple drivers for this change. One is the widely reported higher education funding crisis, meaning that content and subscription budgets are a focus point for making savings. Additionally, the deals for libraries from the big 5 academic publishers, which in the UK are negotiated nationally, are increasingly unaffordable, and have less than ideal terms and conditions attached to them. Alongside these significant considerations are other factors, such as a strong objective in the sector to diversify reading lists and content, an increase in the volume of published academic materials and the increased significance of alternative publication types, such as datasets and code.

One result of all of these changes is that librarians are much more likely to ingest or acquire content from a larger number of small publishers, and have a different relationship with them, that is less about purchasing or subscribing to content, and more about investing. This changes the nature of the relationship between librarians and publishers, and this in turn changes how you might approach accessibility requirements.

 

Reasonable expectations of micro organisations

Scholar led and institution led

Investing, rather than purchasing or subscribing