Maron, Nancy, Juan Pablo Alperin, & Nick Shockey. SPARC COVID Impact Survey: Better Understanding Libraries' Approach to Navigating the Pandemic & Its Impact on Support for Open Initiatives. Report, September. SPARC, 2021

This study on the impact of COVID-19 on academic libraries’ budgetary challenges and approaches is based on a survey distributed to 242 SPARC member institutions in January 2021. For this survey, 117 finalized responses were received from institutions in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
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Go to the profile of Pablo Markin
over 2 years ago

This report indicates that, in the pandemic period, the usage of closed-access and Open Access electronic resources has grown significantly at North American and Australian higher education institutions, while leading to growing intentions of supporting Open Access publishing, especially in Canada. This will likely include an increase in the support, creation and use of Open Educational Resources, in addition to a growth in campus-level funds dedicated to Open Access publishing, even though university libraries face multiple digitization-related priorities. In this respect, a majority (58%) of surveyed institutions have expressed intentions of concluding Open Access agreements with publishers, while increasing their investment into Open Access infrastructures and initiatives to various extents. In other words, in the medium- to long-term aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, around 70% of university libraries will likely seek to reallocate closed-access subscription funds toward Open Access agreements.