Academic research libraries are among the stakeholders – with scholars, funders, professional societies and public policy experts – with a mission to widely disseminate research and scholarship. Many believe that open content and infrastructure are critical means to unfettered distribution and beneficial impact. The Association of Research Libraries’ recent report, Research Library Issues, no. 302 (2021): Sustaining Open Content and Infrastructure, delves into three aspects of open scholarship ecosystems: open persistent identifiers, digital accessibility planning, and standardized data about open scholarly infrastructure use and funding. If these terms and acronyms sound vaguely familiar, this report will give you context: PIDs, DOI, ORCiD ID, ROR, APIs, DMP, HTML, EPUB, and PDF, WCAG, Accessible EPUB3, PDF U/A, captioning, 2.5% commitment, SCIP, SCOSS, COAR and more! The report gives rationale, history and current standards or initiatives for each of these. It doesn’t break new ground, but it does highlight what the Association of Research Libraries deems in need of urgent attention.
