Spanish academic libraries’ perceptions of Open Science. Drivers and barriers, level of knowledge and training

Abstract

This paper reports on the perceptions of Spanish academic libraries regarding Open Science (OS). OS is irrupting into academia and academic librarians need to support researchers. On the other side, researchers need to be ready to change their scientific behaviour in relation to publications and research data. We conducted a focus group with 8 academic librarians. We also sent a survey to (N= 67) academic libraries, obtaining a response rate of 71.6%. In the survey, we asked for drivers and constraints for OS services as well as for any training taking place. Our results show that facilitators are the system relationships (SD = 4.74) and internal promotion of systems relationships (SD = 4.54). In relation to the level of knowledge of OS, both researchers (SD = 3.27) and librarians have a high level in terms of the OA area (SD = 4.15) but little development of the rest of the components of OS. On the other hand, in relation to training librarians, results indicated that OA (SD = 4.79), Open Data (SD = 4.79) and new evaluation models (SD = 4.79) should be part of the training for researchers. The results of the focus group reinforce some of the indicators mentioned. We conclude that academic libraries may train researchers in OS through the acquisition of new skills and trainers-training and with the strategic support of the university. We argue that academic incentives and a change in research accreditation are also needed to shift researchers’ perceptions in relation to OS.