Defining an open access resource strategy for research libraries: Part I—The coming main streamlization of open access resources?

Open access (OA) resources are becoming a main part of scholarly information. The paper summarizes the fast growth of OA journals and OA repositories, the outstanding OA journal impact increase, the rise of mega-OA journals like PLoS ONE , the overwhelming support of research communities to open access of publicly funded research, and the quick building up of OA support structures. These forces work together to push scholarly communications toward a turning point where OA resources occupy a major and increasing share of scholarly research resources and when management of OA resources becomes a strategic, yet unfamiliar,  and  potentially disruptive task for research libraries. This paper is composed of two parts. The first part will focus on the development of OA resources, while the second part will analyze the challenges in management of OA resources and develop an OA resource strategy exemplified by some of NSL's initiatives.