The Open Research Library (ORL) is an aggregation of peer-reviewed, Open Access, scholarly monographs which is hosted on the BiblioBoard platform. Hosting makes the user experience consistent across the collection and enables users to maintain a single bookshelf for all of their Open Access book content. For the library, it streamlines workflows and reduces customer service issues. It also provides a single point of contact, if issues do arise. The full ORL collection has become available for anyone to use beginning in 2020. It is our goal for the ORL collection to be comprehensive and provide readers and libraries a one-stop shop for Open Access book content. In addition to book content, the platform can also accommodate the hosting of video, poster and audio content. The ORL is now accessible for the general public and participating libraries.

The Open Research Library is not designed to replace other Open Access (OA) platforms. Its goal is to give libraries and scholars more options for discovering and accessing OA content. KU has heard repeatedly from libraries and publishers that they would like a better user-experience for OA content, and the launch of the Open Research Library gives stakeholders a chance to invest in a solution that meets their needs. The product development will be driven by pledging institutions.

One of the big differences between ORL and other OA platforms is that a user can create an account (without supplying any personal data) to enable bookmarking, note-taking and list making. It will also allow them to sync their activity across devices, including mobile app activity. Users can search across both the book titles and the full text of the collection with a simple keyword search and refine the results using facets, or they can perform targeted searches using the advanced search feature which includes the ability to search by subject, author, publisher, and language. The site uses responsive web design and works well regardless of the user’s screen size, while accommodating traffic from mobile devices. At present, users are also able to access the Open Research Library collection through the BiblioBoard mobile apps for Apple, Android and Kindle Fire devices. For people with limited access to internet, app access can be vital. The platform addresses the fact that digital book readers require more sophisticated technology to support their online needs than do those reading articles, who are generally happy to download a PDF and move on. As the most recent Affordable Georgia Survey concluded: “A surprising amount of open-ended responses focused on the efficacy of print versus digital resources, and this may indicate a need for not only a print option, but also more usable digital platforms and resources."

Libraries pledging at the premium level will also be able to take advantage of the features that customize the site. These include branding, creating custom collections and controlling the display of content on the homepage.

From the outset, the Open Research Library has been dedicated to Open Access scholarly monographs or collected volumes, but the BiblioBoard platform can also support article, image, audio and video files. Thus, there is an opportunity to expand the collection to incorporate a wide variety of Open Access content.

We are working to make sure that it is simple for libraries to make the content in the Open Research Library discoverable to patrons. All libraries have access to MARC records, and the ORL metadata is also integrated into discovery service systems, including EBSCO’s EDS, Ex Libris' Primo, Summon and OCLC’s Knowledge Base. Because all of the content is hosted on our site, we can ensure links always work and there is one place for trouble-shooting when there is an access or metadata issue.

COUNTER 5 compliant institutional usage statistics are also available to supporting libraries.

Libraries pledging at the premium level have the opportunity to refine the collection to better meet their needs via a library-branded microsite.

The Open Research Library is a hosted content collection on the BiblioBoard platform. Libraries and users can freely register and make use of all the content and the basic features available within the Open Research Library environment. For libraries and library consortia using the BiblioBoard platform for other purposes, such as, to host locally licensed content, these users will be able to navigate easily between BiblioBoard and the Open Research Library, but the collections are unique and not duplicative.

Today, we do not offer a specific LMS integration. However, all of the URLs in the Open Research Library are persistent, making it easy to link to specific items or collections from anywhere. Content files can also be downloaded and posted in the LMS without fear since all of the content in the Open Research Library is Open Access.

Support for chapter level discovery and access is in development now and is planned to be implemented in the near future. However, chapter level access can only be available if the publisher provides chapter level files and metadata for the title. Usage reporting and downloading will be at the chapter level too.

At present, the workflows of the Open Research Library (ORL) do not include the storage of multiple copies of its content at external online or offline platforms. At the same time, different long-term content preservation options are being considered. Yet, as a hosting platform in its own right, the ORL routinely preserves both the original and processed versions of all of its content files. Should the need arise, different versions of its hosted content can be restored. Likewise, since Open Access licenses are not exclusive, external institutions, such as the Social Science Open Access Repository, can use the metadata feeds of the ORL to download specific collections or content items for storage at their systems.

Currently, the platform meets WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards and many of the Level AA requirements. Our support team continuously works to improve the platform, as part of its full Level AA compliance with WCAG 2.0 standards.

● Full-text searching across the collection (implemented) ● Enhanced annotation features (in progress) ● Multiple download format options for each title (in progress) ● Expanded metadata elements in the user interface (FundRef, NERD, etc.) (in progress) ● Usage statistics visual dashboard ● Metadata enrichment, improving publisher supplied metadata (ongoing) ● Comprehensive coverage of other OA content (journals, video, poster, audio, etc.) (ongoing)