Recommended OA Collections

Recommendations for Open Access Electronic Collections

Background:

In the Fall of 2020, a MNPALS Open Access Workgroup convened to analyze a list of Open Access electronic collections and make recommendations in favor of activation or deactivation based on the quality of the collection and links. The list was taken from a larger PCI resources list and then limited to OA materials. The columns were added to the end of the spreadsheet to indicate:
  1. Whether to Activate
  2. Subject information on the material and
  3. Reason for non-activation
Resources were ultimately classified into three categories based on recommended activation action: Yes, No, and Optional. “Optional” collections were generally ones that were subject-specific (i.e. physics) or content-specific (i.e. Government documents). The group reasoned that certain institutions with programs or special collections in these areas might be interested in “opting in”/activating these collections. The relatively few “Yes” collections are open access collections that are from big, well-known publishers like Wiley and Taylor & Francis, are highly multi-disciplinary in subject content, or are OA textbooks collections. Other criteria that they considered includes technical limitations (such total number of portfolios per collection), total number of CDI records (aka, how many records are added to your total Primo search index), percentage of provider index coverage, as well as primary content language (English vs. Non-English) and collection type (journals, ebooks, government documents, institutional repository, etc).

The Workgroup used three categories: yes, no, and optional (which are collections that are subject or content specific). The "yes" category includes collections with dependable content links, the content meets academic libraries' needs, and the site is not predatory.

Many of the "yes" collections have subsequently been activated in the Network Zone and shared with the consortium. Like any collections in the Network Zone, the collections are managed by PALS staff; please open a ticket if you would like any of them to be activated for your institution.

Please note that these recommendations were made in 2021, and these electronic resources may have changed since then.

The findings are attached to this article.




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