Better together: BTAA Libraries, CDL and Lyrasis commit to strengthen Diamond Open Access in the United States

Representatives from the Big Ten Academic Alliance Libraries (BTAA Libraries), California Digital Library (CDL) and Lyrasis attended the Global Summit on Diamond Open Access in Toluca, Mexico in October 2023. The Summit convened the international community to engage in dialog about how to advance Diamond Open Access(OA) to secure scholarly research as a public good and ensure equitable access to both the publishing and reading of that research. You can learn more from the recently released Report of the 2nd Diamond Open Access Conference.

The Summit made evident the substantial global commitment to Diamond OA. If the United States is to be a strong participant in this important global movement, it is our observation that collaborative action is needed to develop this model at a national scale within the US as an equitable, robust, and values-driven pathway to open access. We acknowledge the deep commitment to Diamond OA already exemplified by the activities of the library publishing and repository communities in the US, and we seek to build on this commitment, strengthening the Diamond OA pathway by committing to working together and making our shared resources go further.

The BTAA Libraries, CDL, and Lyrasis already partner in a host of related areas including collective funding programs for Diamond OA initiatives, increased adoption of persistent identifiers, and support for robust OA infrastructure services that enhance discovery and access. The Global Summit has inspired us to go further together – to pool our efforts and combine our strengths to help realize the potential of Diamond OA as a critically important pathway toward open scholarship. We see this work as a necessary companion to other substantial commitments and investments that our organizations are already making to transform the scholarly publishing landscape and increase access to the results of scholarly research.

Ultimately, we hope that a successful collaboration among our three organizations will inspire action, put wind in the sails of those who are already pursuing Diamond OA and create new on-ramps for those who at present have not found the right opportunity to engage. These aspirations reflect our organizations mutual commitment to use collective action to advance Diamond OA in the US. In the next few months, we will be sharing news of a specific set of activities aligned with these aspirations. The time is right to align our organizations’ work with the momentum happening in the global community.

We are better together.

Günter Waibel, Associate Vice Provost & Executive Director, California Digital Library
John Wilkin, Chief Executive Officer, Lyrasis
Maurice York, Director of Library Initiatives, Big Ten Academic Alliance

To learn more, please contact:
• Sharla Lair, Senior Strategist, Open Access & Scholarly Communication Initiatives,
Lyrasis sharla.lair@lyrasis.org
• Kate McCready, Visiting Program Officer, Academy Owned Scholarly Publishing,
Big Ten Academic Alliance
• Catherine Mitchell, Director of Publishing, Archives, and Digitization, California
Digital Library

About the Big Ten Academic Alliance:
The Big Ten Academic Alliance is the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities. For more than half a century, these world-class institutions have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources and collaborating on innovative programs. Governed by the provosts of the member universities, the Big Ten Academic Alliance coordinates shared programs and initiatives through its Champaign, Illinois headquarters. The fifteen world-class libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance include Indiana University, Michigan State University,Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Chicago.

About the California Digital Library:
The systemwide library for the ten University of California campuses, the California Digital Library (CDL) is committed to advancing open access to scholarly research via a number of innovative strategies or “pathways.” Among these is eScholarship Publishing, a Diamond open access library publishing program supported by the UC system and offered free of charge to UC-affiliated editors, authors and publications. eScholarship offers publishing and production tools as well as professional support and consulting services for journals, preprints, monographs and other original scholarship. eScholarship’s publications (including its nearly 100 OA journals) often traverse traditional disciplinary boundaries, explore new publishing models, support under-represented voices within the scholarly record, and reach communities and/or professionals in applied fields beyond academia.
About Lyrasis:
Lyrasis is a community-supported membership organization whose mission is to support enduring access to the world’s shared academic, scientific and cultural heritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums and knowledge communities worldwide.