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Ellen Finnie

Open Access Publisher Agreements Manager, California Digital Library

As of March 2020, Ellen is Open Access Publisher Agreement Manager for the California Digital Library (CDL). In this capacity, Ellen supports the publishing activities of the UC academic community through the development of effective transformative open access agreements with scholarly publishers. Her prior role was Head, Scholarly Communications & Collections Strategy in the MIT Libraries and Co-Interim Associate Director for Collections. In this role, Ellen led the MIT Libraries’ efforts to influence models of scholarly publishing and communication in ways aimed to increase the impact and reach of MIT’s research and scholarship and which promoted open, sustainable publishing and access models. In this role, she led publisher contract negotiations, including under the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts, developing innovative agreements with ACM, the Royal Society of Chemistry, Springer, and the American Chemical Society. Ellen led open access workflows and programs, as well as licensing policy, practices, and negotiations.

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On-Demand Presentations

From Partisan to Partnership

56:57

Release Date: 08/03/2020, Colleen Campbell, Sara Rouhi, Ellen Finnie, Vivian Berghahn, Curtis Brundy, Scott Delman, Ivy Anderson

In the wake of OA2020 and Plan S, publishers are increasingly under pressure to enter into transformative agreements that transparently shift their business model from subscription to one based on open access publishing services. Embarking on such a transition can be extremely daunting for publishers, considering their rightful concern over long-term economic sustainability. Other issues have also become apparent. Many publishers and libraries lack the business knowledge to match author affiliations with subscription revenues/costs. Large publishers may be ready for a cost-neutral transformative agreement based on per-article charges, but an APC-based model may not work for other publishers/disciplines/institutions. Past attrition rates and subscription price increases have made both publishers and libraries wary. And the historic transactional relationship between publishers and libraries has given little opportunity to develop trust. Yet in recent months, a growing number of publishers have chosen the path of absolute customer engagement and transparency in order to define the terms of a new economic model or transformative agreement. This panel will offer perspectives from successful publisher-library collaborations that have led to forward-looking agreements and new business models. Panellists, comprising sets of publisher-library dyads, will share their insights into how transparency and trust transformed their relationships from partisan contracting parties into collaborative partnerships.