NZ Open Access Activation Criteria

Owned by Jessica Hartwigsen
Last updated: Jun 16, 2023
2 min read

This is the criteria used to activate a new Open Access electronic collection in the NZ.  When Ex Libris adds a new Open Access or Free electronic collection to the CZ, these are the criteria used to activate the new e-collection.                                                 

Step-by-step guide

  1. Check to see if the OA e-collection is predatory on Beall's List.  Definition of Predatory Journals.

    1. More information on how to identify a predatory publisher.

  2. Are the journals or e-books available from another e-collection?

    1. If there is a Wiley OA e-collection activated and a new e-collection is added, run an overlap comparison to determine if a second OA e-collection is necessary

    2. If the new OA e-collection added is replacing a previous OA e-collection from the same vendor, activate the new OA e-collection and delete the older OA e-collection

  3. Check if the content is truly full text not just abstracts or reviews or articles

  4. Check the vendor's site for information about their OA titles

    1. Check if the articles are truly open access

    2. Doesn't require a institutional membership or a membership fee to gain access

  5. Check if the OA resource requires a login

    1. Does the site require the user to login to gain access

      1. If user has to create an account on the site, do not activate this resource

  6. If the OA collection contains content in a language other than English, check if the PDFs are translated to English

    1. Notify libraries the new OA contains content in another language and state what language the content is published

  7. Libraries decide if the content is appropriate for their collection development purposes
    1. Notify NZ admin to set up the collection to be shared for the library

  8. If the OA e-collection is activated

    1. Add internal description note so collection can be found in an Advanced Search 

      1. "This is an Open Access OA resource"

        1. Can create a query of Open Access resources in the NZ.  The default "Equals Free" query does not always return all OA e-collections in Alma

    2. Add Public Note

      1. "May need to re-submit the search in the journal or e-book.  Freely-available online resource is not maintained by the library.  Access may be inconsistent"

      2. Add "LocalOnly" to the Internal Description for the RapidILL lending note so that OA items do not trigger an ILL request

    3. The Proxy settings must be set to NO in each library's group setting

      1. Exception, if the OA is available because of an institutional subscription, like ProQuest, the proxy will need to be set to "yes" for each library

    4. Set up CDI settings and add note to Internal Description the date CDI was set up and notate any changes to CDI settings in the Internal Description

    5. Update collections that have odd naming convention

      1. Bacon American Association For The Advancement Of Science Global Openaccess $AAAS_GLOBAL_OPENACCESS

        1. Change to American Association for the Advancement of Science Open Access


Beall's List

ACC Open Access Information and list of recommended OA resources