Impetus from the Open Access Staff Week

This year's Open Access Staff Week took place at Technische Universität (TU) Braunschweig Library from the 5th to the 7th of December. For Jasper Beyermann (Hochschule Bielefeld – University of Applied Sciences and Arts [HSBI]) and Karin Stork (University of Konstanz), it was their first time participating in a networking event organised by open-access.network. We availed of the opportunity to ask them for their impressions.

Danny Flemming [DF]: What prompted you to participate in the Open Access Staff Week in Braunschweig?

Karin Stork [KS]: I wanted to participate in the Staff Week to get to know the library practitioners who are experts in the area of open access. I hoped that, as a "lateral entrant" in the open access context, I could learn a lot from the others and take home new ideas for my work. In addition, I wanted to take a look at a networking event and its methods because community building is part of my work in the project KOALA-AV.

Jasper Beyermann [JB]: I'm a relative newcomer to the area of open access, and previously I dealt more with the topic of study and teaching. Two aspects in particular prompted me to participate: First, I found the concept of the Staff Week exciting. In other networking activities, too, you always get an impression of other universities, but it's quite rare that you can immerse yourself so intensively in the structures of another university. I haven't experienced that in the same way in the area of study and teaching. Second, the event's small group size appealed to me. It enabled an exchange that went beyond superficial getting to know each other and created a very open culture of discussion.

DF: Were your expectations met?

KS: Yes, they were even exceeded. The colleagues from TU Braunschweig Library gave us exciting insights into their work, for example on the LeoPARD repository. But Katja Wermbter, Matthias Kissler and Carsten Elsner didn't just "simply" give talks, they also provided fun facts. I hadn't been aware that the coat of arms of the lion city of Braunschweig also features leopards, and that the "Leo" in LeoPARD is also a lion. These additional little pieces of information may appear incidental, but they ensure that I'll never forget the name of the repository at TU Braunschweig. In addition to the very rewarding exchange with the other participants, these are the details that made the Staff Week special for me.

JB: Yes, definitely. The colleagues in Braunschweig really pulled out all the stops to give us an insight into their structures, developments, and challenges. In terms of content, it was definitely worthwhile for me, and I could get to know interesting people from various universities. Both the inputs and the discussion sessions and work phases were very stimulating. There was also always enough time for more in-depth discussion, and we didn't have to move on to the next item on the agenda straight away.

DF: Which content did you find most exciting?

KS: For me as a quite inexperienced open access newcomer, the "Bring your own problem" session was particularly interesting. Starting with the method of the session: Everyone could write down three problems from their day-to-day work lives on cardboard cards. We clustered the collected problems by topic, and then we used sticky dots to vote on the problems we wanted to discuss at the plenary session. The "winner" was the problem of the lack of attention for open access outside the open access bubble – that is, in the areas in which many researchers are active, and also at management level in some universities. In other words, exactly where the topic should be much more present.

JB: What was most exciting for me were the discussions about the cooperation structures in the science system and the strategic developments. It is increasingly clear that it is not possible for every university to create insular solutions, and that cooperations are increasingly needed. That applies both to technical infrastructure and to the organisational level – and perhaps also to financing. Particularly for small universities, it will become increasingly important to benefit from consortial structures. Therefore, it was extremely exciting to hear about the developments in TU9 [the alliance of leading universities of technology in Germany] and about the fact that TU Braunschweig is working on open source solutions for the various challenges in cost monitoring with which many university libraries are currently dealing. Only in such cooperative structures can we shape the publication system more consciously in the long term.

DF: Were there overlaps with your current projects?

KS: I'm working on the project KOALA-AV, which is aimed at expanding consortial funding of diamond open access models and increasing networking between the participating actors. So there were at least two overlaps with my project on different levels. First, the greatest substantive overlaps with my topic were in the final session, "Status, Prospects and Perception of Diamond OA Books". And second, I could learn about a lot of great methods for networking events. The combination of input from the talks and the subsequent group work sessions in which we could talk about the status quo at our own institutions and exchange ideas was optimal.

JB: Yes, definitely. I'm working on the project P2P.OA.HAW, in which we're testing the peer-to-peer strategy consulting approach developed by the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung in the area of open access at universities of applied sciences (HAW). For me, it was therefore particularly valuable that some representatives of universities of applied sciences participated in the event and that I could benefit from their experiences and discussion contributions. In this way, I could gain a different awareness of some of the challenges faced by small universities. Although HSBI is also a university of applied sciences, we have 10,000 students, and thus other capacities.

DF: Could you take home new ideas for your day-to-day work?

KS: In particular the group work on the final session, in which we talked about open access books, showed me that there is a great need for diamond open access models. And also that there are some definition problems, and that it is often unclear at what point a model can be referred to as "genuine" diamond open access. However, transparency in the description of the way diamond open access financing works can help here. In this regard, I could take home several new ideas for the information events that we are designing for KOALA-AV.

JB: Some of the points that I could mention here, I have already mentioned in my answers to previous questions. What I would perhaps like to additionally highlight are the insights into cooperation between the libraries and university management. What bodies and exchange formats are there? And what helps in the communication between the more strategic and the more operative level? There were a lot of interesting impressions on this topic from other universities. This information could be valuable for my future work. The ideas as to how to better reach researchers at one's own institution were a further point.

DF: What would your wishes for future Staff Weeks be?

KS: My wish would be that the programme would once again comprise such a good mixture of information and exchange. In addition, as a warm-up to get to know each other, I'd wish for the classic "I'm packing my suitcase …", but with the name of the participant, their institution, and their primary objective in coming to the Staff Week. So, for example: "I'm Karin, I'm from the University of Konstanz, and I'm taking part in the Staff Week because I want to learn as much as possible about the status quo of open access at scholarly libraries."

JB: I would leave the programme more or less as it is, and my wish would of course be that the staff at the university that hosts the next event will be just as motivated in preparing it as the colleagues at TU Braunschweig Library were.

DF: Many thanks for the interview!