IRS Library Receives Open Library Badge

For its commitment to open access to knowledge and information, the IRS library was awarded the Open Library Badge. The Open Library Badge initiative aims to reward libraries that promote openness in science and society. It seeks to make corresponding offers and activities visible. Openness in this context entails the removal of access barriers, the promotion of participation and the commitment to transparency. 26 libraries in German-speaking countries have received the badge in its current iteration.

The Open Library Badge comprises 15 criteria, of which at least five must be fulfilled in order to receive the badge. Ideas for implementing the individual criteria in practice are collected and presented on the Open Library Badge website as best practice examples. This is intended to motivate other libraries to also work towards more openness.

The IRS library has already been promoting openness in the context of Open Access and Open Science for several years. In order to make the library's achievements more visible and expand them, the library now successfully applied for the Open Library Badge in accordance with the current standards that have been valid since 2020. It received the badge for the following criteria:

1. Establishing cost transparency for Open Access: By participating in OpenAPC, the library discloses the costs of OA publications from the IRS and thus contributes to cost transparency in this market segment. This makes publishing with Open Access easier to plan.

2. Making Open Access resources visible: By integrating the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) into the library's catalogue, OA publications become more visible to users.

3. Uncovering Open Access potential: The IRS library offers the Institute's staff a comprehensive range of information and advice on the topics of Open Access and publication management. In addition to comprehensive information on the IRS intranet site, employees can receive individual advice.

4. Integration of internal and external users: With the switch to the new library catalogue, which is based on the open source software Koha, the Institute's employees have the opportunity to enrich the library catalogue with their own keywords through social tagging. In this way, they help to make the media listed in the catalogue even easier to search.

5. Making photos of the library accessible and usable: Photos of the library are made available for free use on Wikimedia Commons under the CC BY 4.0 licence.