Library Technology Guides

Jisc and Taylor & Francis agree new open research deal for UK. Jisc and leading publisher Taylor & Francis have renewed an open research agreement offering significantly more publishing options for researchers. Building on the previous transformative agreement (TA), which supported thousands of UK researchers to publish open access, the Taylor & Francis Read and Publish 2024-25 agreement aims to foster OR practices and further increase the impact of UK research, especially in the humanities and social sciences. [Full Announcement].

Jisc and HESA confirm merger. Jisc, the UK's digital body for tertiary education, and Higher Education Statistics Agency have announced a merger, taking effect from the beginning of October 2022. The move will see all 171 HESA colleagues, including its CEO Rob Phillpotts, move to Jisc, creating a new data collection and statistics directorate. Phillpotts, who has led HESA since November 2021, will head up the directorate and join Jisc's executive leadership team. [Full Announcement].

Jisc and UCISA agree closer working on key sector challenges. The alliance brings together two of the sector's trusted partners: Jisc, the UK's sector agency focused on digital, data and technology in tertiary education and research, and UCISA, which brings a unique ability to represent digital practitioners with insight, authority and authenticity. Joint activities will include co-authoring publications, promoting good practice within and beyond the sector, and arranging expert speakers at each other's events. Most importantly, it will enable a greater level of knowledge-sharing across the sector, creating a stronger voice on key issues. [Full Announcement].

Jisc and OCLC unable to continue agreement on National Metadata Sharing for 2022/23. Libraries who use OCLC records in their catalogues will be aware that Jisc and OCLC entered into a Transitional National Metadata Agreement covering the period August 1st 2021 – July 31st 2022. Following a lengthy national consultation, this Agreement remodeled the charging structure for OCLC services, and enabled all UK HE libraries to access full OCLC records through Jisc Library Hub Cataloguing. Whilst the Transitional Agreement has been successful in providing a more consistent and sustainable pricing model for future use, and take up has been good, Jisc and OCLC have been unable to agree post-transitional terms for a longer-term agreement. This means that as of August 1st 2022, libraries will be unable to subscribe to the WorldCat Cataloguing and Metadata subscription using the Jisc Licence Subscriptions Manager platform. Eligible libraries who wish to subscribe (or Authorised libraries re-subscribe) to OCLC cataloguing services will need to talk directly to OCLC. [Full Announcement].

Ground-breaking open research platform, Octopus, to launch. Ground-breaking publishing platform Octopus is being launched next week on 29 June and researchers are invited to attend the online event to find out more. Octopus aims to enable fast, free and fair publishing of research that is open to all and focuses on the intrinsic quality of research. It sets out to avoid researchers being tempted to ‘sell good stories' in their work, and instead rewards them for rigour and specialism. [Full Announcement].

Jisc response to the Elsevier open access agreement. UK universities have reached a three-year agreement with Elsevier providing both unlimited open access publishing and access to paywalled journal articles for a significant reduction on current institutional spend. [Full Announcement].

The Jisc/OCLC National Metadata Agreement. Jisc and OCLC have signed an agreement that means academic and specialist libraries across the UK will have better access to fit-for-purpose catalogue records, and an enhanced ability to share and reuse bibliographic metadata. Building on the aims of Plan M and the recommendations coming out of the ‘Remodelling the Library Data Marketplace‘ consultancy work, this agreement will allow subscribing libraries to access OCLC WorldCat cataloguing services, and will enable all users of the Jisc Library Hub Cataloguing service to download full OCLC records. It also increases the global visibility of subscribing libraries by enabling catalogue data to be shared with WorldCat. [Full Announcement].

Exact Editions Partners with Jisc on a New Deal for Further Education Colleges. Exact Editions has partnered with Jisc to provide a new deal for further education (FE) colleges across the UK that is available until the end of March 2022. The deal includes discounted prices on more than 70 prestigious titles across the platform that can be used as part of on-site teaching and home study. This partnership comes in recognition of the unprecedented financial repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and represents a joint initiative to provide affordable subscriptions to FE institutions. [Full Announcement].

Publications Router is integrated with Haplo. Publications Router, the service from Jisc that adds research articles automatically to repositories, is now fully interoperable with Haplo Repository, an open-source repository and research information management system. This means that the Router service is now available to you if your institution uses Haplo and is a Jisc member. [Full Announcement].

National consortium for ORCID set to improve UK research visibility and collaboration. ORCID – a researcher identifier solution which enables a wide range of improvements to the scholarly communications ecosystem – will now be offered to UK higher education institutions through a national consortium arrangement operated by Jisc, a UK charity which promotes the use of technology within education and research. The agreement, negotiated by Jisc Collections, will enable universities to benefit from reduced ORCID membership costs and enhanced technical support. This should accelerate adoption and provide a smoother path to ORCID integration for UK universities. It will ultimately help to transform the management, re-use, and efficiency of the UK research output by improving the integration of research systems and processes, and enhancing data quality. [Full Announcement].

13 partners from across Europe join together to improve digital curation. Seven European countries are launching 4C (the Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation) to help public and private European organisations invest more effectively in digital curation and preservation, sustaining the long-term value of all types of digital information. [Full Announcement].