Talk given at Plan S briefing - Cathal MacCauley

1. IReL and the need for change in
scholarly publishing
Cathal McCauley
University Librarian, Maynooth University /IReL Director
NORF/RIA Plan S briefing , 22 January 2019

2. Overview of the IReL initiative
• A shared service est. in 2004 that delivers access to over
30,000 electronic resources
• Members: 7 Universities, RCSI (2008 – STEM resources)
and since 2018 DIT / TU Dublin (full participation form
2019 onwards). Two IoT resources.
• Annual budget c.€10M (DBEI, HEA/DES, voluntary top
slice of Uni. Core grant and member contributions)
• Governed by the Irish University Libraries Collaboration
Centre (IULCC) at Maynooth University
• IReL review due to conclude in early 2019
MU Library

3. Current (dominant) model of scholarly
publishing is dysfunctional
• Costs soaring – €22 billion+ in global revenues (increasing
c.5%/€1 bn+ p.a.) – unique business model
• Outlandish profit margins – top publishers more profitable
than 97% of other PLCs and than many ‘big brands’
including BMW, Google and Apple
• Concentrated control of Top 4 Publishers (Elsevier,
Springer, T&F and Wiley)
• Expensive AND limited access - bad deal for tax payers and
other funders
• Undue influence on publication and research process of
impact factors
MU Library

4. Towards Open Access (OA)
• OA around since 1970s but
key steps from 2000
onwards esp. 2002
Budapest Declaration
• Many definitions – digital,
freely accessible and
unrestricted use
• Many types (Gold, Green,
Diamond, Hybrid etc)
• 28% of scholarly pubs are
OA with share growing
MU Library

5. Freely available Free
MU Library
Credit: Dr Ralf Schimmer Head of Information Provision │ Max
Planck Digital Library

6. Go raibh maith agaibh
Thank You
Cathal.McCauley@mu.ie
@cathalmccauley
MU Library