On 16 April 2024, the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information was published. Its focus is on reforming how metadata about scientific outputs is shared and used – specifically making sure that such data is open and not closed.
The Declaration has far-reaching consequences. It makes numerous strategic demands of not just university libraries, but Human Resources, Corporate Communications and ultimately senior management.
For libraries, it can be difficult to know where to start. Here at TU Delft Library, here is a sketch of some of the paths we are considering taking.
Short term
- Where there is clarity of ownership, expose all of our metadata related to research outputs as CC0. For metadata in systems such as PURE, this can be tricky, as the copyright status of metadata imported from other systems is not always known. But for metadata that has been created in the university, we know that we are the owners
- Continue working with Open Research Information Agenda at SURF – https://communities.surf.nl/open-research-information
- Contribute to a coherent Open Infrastructure policy in Delft. And if this develops, within the broader Digital Sovereignty discussions in UNL. See original blogpost at https://openworking.wordpress.com/2022/02/10/charting-library-use-of-open-vs-closed-infrastructures/
Medium term
- Make Open Research Information a key pillar in the work of Research Analytics and Collections team in library, working and experimenting alongside with other existing sources.
- Start a Library (or even university) Metadata policy that exposes all TU Delft library, university metadata as CC0. Push beyond research for open metadata – open educational metadata, open heritage data
- Continue discussions with other strategic stakeholders (HR, Corporate Comms) over the use of open research information as part of Rewards and Recognitions process, or to use black box data only in limited situations
- Finalise an Open Infrastrucutre policy, either locally or nationally.
Long term
- Seriously consider the use of and need for ‘commerical black boxes’ such as Pure, Web of Science, Scopus and others.
- Continues strategic discussions, and hopefully finalise university wide policies focussing on the use of Open Research Information.