National Centre for Electronic Information Resources (CzechELib)

Abstract

The National Centre for Electronic Information Resources (CzechELib), operating under the Czech National Library of Technology (NTK), actively promotes the use of open licenses to enhance the accessibility and dissemination of scientific publications.

CzechELib's primary strategy involves converting traditional subscription-based license agreements into transformative agreements. These agreements reallocate a portion of subscription fees towards covering publishing fees, thereby facilitating open access publishing. This approach enables authors to publish their work under open licenses, such as Creative Commons (CC) licenses, making their research immediately and freely accessible to the public.

CzechELib has negotiated agreements with multiple publishers—including Wiley, Springer Nature, ACS, RSC, Taylor and Francis, OUP, CUP, IOP, AIP, ACM, and Sage—to provide discounts or complete waivers of open access publishing fees for consortium members. These agreements often recommend the use of CC BY licenses, aligning with institutional and funder mandates to maximize the dissemination and reuse of research outputs.

CzechELib offers detailed instructions and support to authors and institutional administrators on utilizing open access publishing options effectively. This includes guidance on selecting appropriate open licenses that facilitate broad dissemination and reuse of scientific work.

Overview

Country	Czechia
Start date	2017
Annual Budget	7931
Responsible organisation(s)	Ministry
Target group(s)	Higher education institutes|Public research institutes
Policy instrument type	Information services and access to datasets

Background

The National Centre CzechELib was established with support from the European Operational Programme Research, Development, Education (2017-2022). Since 2023, it has been fully integrated into the project “National Centre for Information Support of Research, Development, and Innovation”, which receives funding from the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports.

A total budget of CZK 1,056,082,843.81 was allocated for the CzechELib project duration from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2022. Over 90% of this budget was dedicated to supporting the acquisition of electronic information resources (EIR) for the Czech research and education community. In the years 2018 to 2020, the purchase of electronic information resources (EIRs) was funded through this project allocation. During the 2018–2022 period, a minimum of 50% of the total EIR cost was subsidized, with bibliometric databases like Web of Science and Scopus (including analytical tools such as InCites and SciVal) receiving at least 70% support.

Objective(s)

To centralize and streamline the acquisition, management, and provision of electronic information resources for research, development, and education in the Czech Republic.

To negotiate transformative agreements with publishers, converting subscription fees into funding for open access publishing, and encourage authors to publish under open licenses, such as Creative Commons (CC), which maximize the visibility and reuse of research outputs.

Public access URL

https://www.czechelib.cz/en/56-about-czechelib

All tags

• Responsibility, Ownership & Stewardship
• Czechia
• 2017
• Ministry
• Higher education institutes
• Public research institutes
• Information services and access to datasets
• Open licenses

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