I would like to report back on my action item from the March meeting:

Action Item – Lin – Explore if the open access filter and including open access resources in catalogue is a Summons issue or if it extends to other library systems (e.g. EDS).

Thank you to FX Pare, Systems Librarian at BCIT, for this excellent and detailed explanation:

The short answer:

This could apply to any system, not just Summon/Serials Solutions. However, the details of where/how this is controlled will likely vary from one system to another. Similarly, the collections themselves (exact name, number of titles, etc.) could vary to some extent between software products.

The long answer:

In general, I see four main areas where a library could have a decision to make regarding OA content. Again this should apply to any system, but it could present itself differently from one to the other (some elements might be combined, some might be automatic, etc.).

1) Activating the collections (or not) in the Link Resolver (this could be 360 Link, SFX, Alma, Full Text Finder, etc.).

Impacts:
- A patron using the "Get It" button will be presented with a link to the full text of the article.

- The activated titles will be included in the e-journals/e-books lists, if those are available. In some cases this could be controlled separately (so titles could be available through "Get It" but not be listed, for example).

2) Exporting individual e-journal/e-book records (or not) for those titles to the ILS/Discovery interface (Summon, Primo, EDS, etc.). For some systems this might be automatic once a title is activated in the link resolver, but in other cases this might be controlled on a collection-by-collection basis.

Impact:

- There will now be individual records for the selected OA e-books and e-journals in the Catalogue/Discovery interface.

3) Adding individual article records for the OA titles (or not) to the search results in the Discovery interface.

Impact:

- Records for individual articles coming from those collections will show up in search results.
There is potentially a second level at play here, which is whether the records would be considered part of the library's collection, or whether they would only appear when the user clicks "Show results beyond the library's collection" (or something along those lines). This could either be determined by the activation status in the Link Resolver (see 1 above) or perhaps some systems would assume that the documents are available, given that they are from an Open Access title/collection (see 4 below).

4) Activating (or not) the Open Access filter (aka facet) and/or indicator in the Discovery interface. This is usually an all-or-nothing option, meaning that it's either activated or not, and can't be controlled on a collection-by-collection or title-by-title basis. The determination of whether a record is from an Open Access journal or not is often based on a central directory of journals such as Ulrich's.

Impacts:

- Users will be able to filter search results based on the "Open Access" nature of the documents.

- There can also be some sort of flag, icon or label in each record, indicating that they describe Open Access content.

Ideally there would be some sort of consistency between these four areas in a given institution, meaning that if a collection is deemed trustworthy or interesting enough to be activated in the link resolver, it would also make sense to have the individual articles appear in the Discovery interface, etc.. But there might exceptions, which is why those areas can usually be controlled separately.

One last thing that I think I mentioned before but bears repeating: an additional difficulty in working across different systems is that the available collections themselves might not be totally similar from one institution to the next. Some collections might be available in one resolver but not in another, some collections might have a slightly different name or number of titles, etc. This could make collaboration more difficult, but it's not necessarily a deal-breaker either, as there would likely be significant similarities as well.