Perspective Chapter: Science and Technology Libraries in the Age of Open Science – Scenarios for the New Protagonism of Scientific and Technological Information

Abstract

Science and Technology Libraries (STL) have always functioned as supporters of scientific and technological activities. In the Digital Era, this role was considered superfluous due to the facilities offered by information and communication technologies. In this work, we consider that the recent movements of Open Science and open access to scientific publications enable libraries to become again important protagonists in the scientific community. In this context, our objective is to analyze the relationship between the library and the Open Science proposal considering the complex elements that constitute the value chain of scientific and technological research. Aspects of analysis include collaboration, multilevel governance, co-production, and co-creation, with the pragmatic envelopment of information. The chosen method is the philosophical current of critical realism presenting a conceptual framework that relates STL, Open Science, organizational collaboration, multilevel governance, and current scientific information.

1. Introduction

Science and Technology Libraries (STL) are defined as libraries that support scientific and technological research wherever it takes place. Nevertheless, the advancement of information and communication technologies has somewhat diminished the central role they once held in the research chain. In the last 20 years, however, the Open Science movement has emerged and, in particular, the segments of open access to scientific publications and open research data have become significant contributions that libraries can offer to the scientific community. In this context, the objective of this chapter is to bring the relationship between the library and Open Science and to add to the implex elements that support the perennial protagonism of the library in the value chain of scientific and technological research, such as collaboration, multilevel governance, co-production and co-creation, and the pragmatic wrapping of current information. The methodology adopted is founded in the philosophical current of critical realism, applied, qualitative, exploratory, longitudinal, and bibliographic, opting as methodological strategy the narrative literature review, followed by qualitative and inductive content analysis. The result presented is a conceptual framework that relates STL, Open Science, organizational collaboration, multilevel governance, and current scientific information. In conclusion, the chapter shows that the discussion about the role of libraries in science and technology does not end with the philosophical issues of Open Science and the competencies of information science and computer science. It moves on to political and organizational issues since Open Science involves an intense process of governance and collaboration.

Wilson [1] defines STL with words that transcend the physical infrastructure available, “as the source of ideas and ideals and as the stimulator of scholarly interests and attitudes” (p. 144). They were the center of scientific and technological research, represented by imposing buildings in universities and research centers when their definition was “a place where the scholar, beginning with a thesis or with a question, can pursue it wherever it leads … allows the researcher to follow – with efficiency – an idea that spontaneously arises, it also permits accidental discovery” (Fabian [2] apud [3]).

However, the evolution of information and communication technologies removed the leading role of research from libraries and gave researchers the autonomy to go directly to the digital space of scientific and technological resources and information. For a while, the main source of access and dissemination of advances in science and technology was not at the forefront of efforts to advance knowledge.

In the last 20 years came in force the Open Science movement, an initiative that has been mobilizing the science and technology community. This movement is strengthening the ethos of science described by Robert K. Merton, since for this sociologist; the search for the common good must be the ontology that governs the behavior of the researcher. In the following decade, two other manifestations illuminated what would become Open Science.

Article 27 of the Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees the right of all man to participate in scientific progress and its benefits, and the publication of the book Selected Poems, by Mark Van Doren, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, who defends everyone’s right to the free use of knowledge.

In the context of the role of STL and the flourishing of Open Science, this research aims to investigate the relationship between the library and Open Science and to add to the implicit elements that support the role of the library in the value chain of scientific and technological research. Specifically, it intends to present the simplified scenario of Open Science (contemporary meanings based on history, schools of thought, and the positioning of international organizations). In addition, defining aspects of Open Science in the research library as its structuring elements include collaboration and multilevel governance, the paradigm of co-production, and co-creation.

Regarding the methodology, the research is grounded in Roy Bhaskar’s (1944–2014) philosophical approach of critical realism, which considers social life to be an open system constructed by several dimensions, each with its distinctive structures [4]. This research can be considered applied science character from the point of view of its nature because its goal is to generate new knowledge for practical application. The approach to the problem is qualitative. From the point of view of the objectives, it is a secondary exploratory and propositional research. From the time perspective, it is longitudinal and from the point of view of technical procedures, it is bibliographical research. The methodological strategy is a narrative literature review, based on the consensus and criticism of the available scientific production. The selected studies are, essentially, fundamental epistemological works in each of the thematic cores of the research (Open Science, science, technology libraries, organizational collaboration, multilevel governance, and current scientific information systems). After the review, the next procedure was inductive content analysis. It consisted of an in-depth analysis of selected works based on the methodology proposed by Elo and Kyngäs [5], recommended when there are no previous studies dealing with the phenomenon or when knowledge is fragmented.

The expected result is a conceptual framework that relates STL, Open Science, organizational collaboration, multilevel governance, and current scientific information, to understand the structuring condition of the elements mentioned as the set of intra and inter-organizational, interconnected, and interdependent activities, which add value to scientific and technological research.

2. Open Science

2.1 Contemporary meanings historically grounded

The term Open Science, with its current meaning, originates in the 1985 paper Open science and closed science: tradeoffs in a democracy, written by Daryl E. Chubin, in which the author enters into Robert Merton’s 1942 classic on the imperatives for scientific practice—communism, universalism, communication, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism—presenting the idiosyncrasies related to the social context to enable the ethos of Open Science.

Thirty years later, Vercellone et al. [6] reinforced the spirit of the common good that innervates the open nature of information and communication technologies in meeting the Mertonian culture and ethos of Open Science, with the following words: “the new generation brought up on widespread knowledge takes up and reformulates the four fundamental Mertonian principles of universalism, communism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism on their own, integrating them into a new value system …” (p. 58).

In that paper, Chubin [7] also defines closed science as “research which, in its production, communication, or utilization, is inaccessible to potential consumers. The grounds for such closure are always political” (p. 80). And continues: “the contrasts between Open Science and closed science help to clarify, much like the norms, how constituent communities of science adapt their behavior to ideology on the one hand and local organizational constraints on the other …. It is a matter for political debate, not scientific judgment alone” (p. 81).

Collaboration and participation, on the other hand, are an integral part of the Open Science ecosystem. Its actors collectively strive in the pursuit and evolution of the set of governance norms for the production and dissemination of reliable knowledge. According to ref. [8], the predicate open makes precise and robust the meaning of promoting a common good, in which participation is welcome and interoperability is maximized: “knowledge is open if anyone is free to access, use, modify, and share it — subject, at most, to measures that preserve provenance and openness” (n.d.).

Reference [9] includes noting that the results of Open Science are subject to open copyright, that on a legal level allows the use, modification, and transfer of knowledge, in this case scientifically proven knowledge¹. Burgelman et al. [10] claim that “it is therefore very likely that in the long term, the adjective open should not be necessary as science will be open by default” (p. 1). Even if governments claim so, Open Science and open access will become the norm in academic research [11]. Meanwhile, according to ref. [12], the openness of science oscillates toward a workable combination of availability, legality, and costs.

Open Science revolves around the fundamental principles of utilizing, reusing, and sharing knowledge, all facilitated by open digital technologies that guarantee the realization of this ideal. From an economic point of view and by a functionalist explanation, Open Science can be justified by full access to data and information throughout the research cycle, reduced duplication of research effort, rapid validation of findings, expanded knowledge, and cooperation between research initiatives. It certainly is that, but it goes further. By considering Open Science a common good, the movement makes scientific research accessible at all levels of society, facilitating enjoyment, encouraging engagement, and accelerating new practices and achievements.

Roughly speaking, Open Science drives and is related to open access publication, open data, open educational resources, open engagement of social actors (citizen science), open evaluation (or open peer review), open hardware, open innovation, Open Science infrastructures, open source software, openness to all scholarly knowledge and inquiry, openness to diversity knowledge, and openness to indigenous systems. Initiatives that can be considered the turning point for new science, supported by technologies that multiply the impact of the results in the very ecosystem of Open Science and its transformative potential for reducing social inequalities and accelerating the progress of humanity (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Open Science diagram from UNESCO (source: Persic [13]).

From an information science perspective, open access to scientific publications and open research data are the main movements of Open Science. The first, established in 2002 within the scope of The Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), formalized the Open Access Movement² and coined the term open access.

The declaration made the model of “eliminating barriers that prevent the legitimate use of scientific literature for academic purposes […] available online, without economic barriers and most reuse permission barriers³”([14], p. 63)⁴. The meaning and technologies associated with the open access of scientific publications led not only to open access but also to free dissemination, based on licenses such as the Creative Commons in 2002. According to ref. [15], “Open Access to research results is an essential part of Open Science, which aims to make science more reliable, efficient and responsive” (p. 15). About Open data, Section 2.2 will deal with this topic in depth.

And the second, open research data, is one of the most important elements for the success of Open Science [10]. With them it is possible to reuse and enrich the dataset, the result of which is to shorten the time needed for research. It is worth considering that through open research data, it is possible to increase the critical evaluation of research, detecting inaccuracies and inaccuracies and enabling more accurate replicability tests.

It is important to note that Open Science is also concerned with crediting the ownership of research efforts to the respective authors, and this extends to research data as well, giving visibility to those responsible for collecting or generating the data, increasing their citations, and therefore increasing their research impact index.

As more researchers have adopted Open Science practices, allowing wider sharing of research results, research data has gradually become the focus of attention in STL. According to Federer et al. [16], many STL offer research data management (RDM), with an emphasis on data management planning.

However, it should not be lost sight that Open Science is related to the entire research process (collecting, analyzing, publishing, reanalyzing, criticizing, and reusing), and “represents a new approach to the scientific process based on cooperative work and new ways of diffusing knowledge by using digital technologies and new collaborative tools” ([15], p. 33). Indeed, the OECD Blue Sky III Forum, Smith et al. [17] defined Open Science as openness to the entire research cycle referring to ongoing changes in the way research is conducted, with a move toward increased transparency, collaboration, communication, and participation” (p. 1) (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Different stages of research and the corresponding opening processes (Source: Finnish Open Science and Research Initiative [12]).

To facilitate the understanding and quick visualization of all the segments reached by Open Science, Pontika et al. [18] made available the Open Science Taxonomy, a collaboratively developed mind map that establishes the hyponymic relationship of the area. The reason for creating the taxonomy was to represent the concepts of this special purpose vocabulary, in an organized way [19]. It provides standardization of the ways of expression, avoiding ambiguities and improving the quality of communication of terms and concepts of this specialized language. The main issues in creating the taxonomy were the joint decisions about the number of representative hierarchies to be chosen, the terminology that should be adopted, and the relationship between the terms. With this orientation, nine terms were selected to represent the first hierarchical level, with the ramifications shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Open Science taxonomy (source: Knoth and Pontika [20]).

2.2 Open Science schools of thought

With the diversity of approaches to Open Science, sociologists [21] structured and synthesized five schools of thought, which describe the different interpretations of the term and its principles.

2.2.1 Infrastructure school

Centered on the creation of available platforms, tools, and services, promoting the infrastructure for the development of research. Approaches Open Science as a technological challenge, represented in two trends. The first is distributed computing, which allows high-volume data processing in large projects, from computer networks and technologies around the world [22]. The second is social networking based on the collaboration of scientists, with technological resources that facilitate the collaboration and definition of the social virtual research environment. Characterized by:

1. Sharing resources frequently used by researchers;

2. Providing incentives for researchers to make their research objects available on the platform;

3. Keeping the digital artifacts that make up the environment easily integrable and;

4. Preparing the environment, not only, to be a place to store information and research resources, but also to be used for conducting research [23].

2.2.2 Measurement school

The authors, of this school, point out that measuring the scientific impact of scientific contribution is capital for the researcher’s career and research. They argue that, in effect, Open Science revolves around the development of robust alternative methods of measuring science, not least because of criticism of the prevailing modus operandi. Contemporary technological conditions are sufficient to obtain a full multifaceted and multidimensional assessment of the resulting impact, which is under the hypernym of altmetrics, a term coined by Priem et al. [24], which refers “to study and use of scholarly impact measures based on activity in online tools and environments. (…) is in most cases a subset of both scientometrics and webometrics” ([25], p. e48753).

2.2.3 Public school

This understanding is concerned with making science accessible to a wider public, considers two perspectives: in the accessibility of the research process and; in the understanding of the research results for the society and not only for the specialists of the ecosystem directly involved in the production and fruition. Access to the public is about promoting the inclusion of individuals external to the research process. Its objective is to expand the reach of research, the multiplication of the data examined, the collective intelligence of the volunteer workforce, confirming what is being called citizen science, initiatives that include the participation of amateurs, volunteers, and enthusiasts in large-scale scientific projects, usually limited to data collection [26]. Making research understandable to a wider public, including the fundamental concept that every researcher should make their research accessible to the public, also considers science popularization initiatives.

2.2.4 Democratic school

Here are concentrated initiatives of open access to scientific publications and open research data, which are concerned with access to knowledge, of the products of research, trying to solve the legal obstacles that hinder access to research publications and scientific data. It meets the democratic principle, advocated in the Declaration of Human Rights, that knowledge should be available to all and that all have an equal right to access to knowledge, especially when it comes to publicly funded research. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations Assembly in 1948, states in Article 27 that “1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. 2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author” [27].

2.2.5 Pragmatic school

In this school of thought, the core is collaboration and its intrinsic benefits in dealing with critical issues, such as the creation and dissemination of new knowledge from scientific research. This is, lato sensu, open innovation, which: “adopts an integrative perspective when considering internal and external sources of knowledge, organizations must acquire knowledge from external actors to integrate with internally developed knowledge, which is in line with West and Bogers (2014) [28] who present the issue as summon to people within organizations to seek external knowledge and integrate it with internal knowledge to improve processes and products” (p. 121).

In summary, Open Science brings opportunities to increase collaboration throughout the research process. As ref. (21) summarize by Tacke’s [29] thinking on open innovation, Open Science transfers “from the outside-in (including external knowledge to the production process) and inside-out (spillovers from the formerly closed production process) principles to science” (p. 32).

2.3 Positioning of international organizations

With the rise of interest in Open Science in the highest political forums of the countries, UNESCO started a consultative process⁵ on the subject with its member countries, which resulted in the Recommendation on Open Science, adopted during the 41st Session of the UNESCO General Conference in November 2021 [30]. In addition to bringing a consistent definition of Open Science, transcribed below, “inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming to make multilingual scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone, to increase scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the benefits of science and society, and to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation, and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community. It comprises all scientific disciplines and aspects of scholarly practices, including basic and applied sciences, natural and social sciences, and the humanities, and it builds on the following key pillars: open scientific knowledge, Open Science infrastructures, science communication, open engagement of societal actors and open dialogue with other knowledge systems” (p. 7).

The document encourages countries to prioritize seven areas in its implementation and consolidation: “i. Promoting a common understanding of Open Science, associated benefits, and challenges, as well as diverse paths to Open Science; ii. Developing an enabling policy environment for Open Science; iii. Investing in Open Science infrastructures and services; iv. investing in human resources, training, education, digital literacy, and capacity building for Open Science; v. fostering a culture of Open Science and aligning incentives for Open Science; vi. Promoting innovative approaches for Open Science at different stages of the scientific process; vii. Promoting international and multi-stakeholder cooperation in the context of Open Science and to reduce digital, technological and knowledge gaps” (p. 6).

Certainly, governments, funding agencies, academic entities, and scientific societies around the world have been promoting actions and policies to stimulate Open Science practices, such as, for example, Horizon Europe, the main driver of Open Science in the European Union, whose strategy is organized into eight action fronts:

• Open data: findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data which sharing will be the default in EU-funded scientific research.

• European Open Science Cloud (EOSC): a trusted, virtual, and federated environment that crosses borders and scientific disciplines to store, share, process, and reuse digital research objects⁶, following the FAIR principle, and bringing together national and European stakeholders, initiatives, and institutional infrastructures.

• Next-generation metrics: development of new indicators of research quality and impact to complement conventional ones, ensuring fairness to Open Science practices.

• Learning exercise: sharing specific research and innovation challenges in Open Science through the exchange of good practices.

• Future of scientific communication: peer-reviewed scientific publications should be open access and early sharing of research results should be encouraged.

• Rewards: career evaluation systems should fully recognize Open Science activities.

• Research integrity and reproducibility of scientific results: EU-funded research should adhere to commonly agreed standards of research integrity.

• Education and skills: all scientists in Europe should have the necessary skills and support to fully perform with open scientific research.

• Citizen science: society must be able to make meaningful contributions and be recognized as a producer of valid scientific knowledge.

Following this line of action, the program aims, on the one hand, to promote the adoption of Open Science practices, from sharing data and research results (early and widely), stimulating citizen science, and developing new indicators that can be fair in recognizing the commitment to Open Science; on the other hand, to ensure that researchers maintain undisputed intellectual property rights.

2.4 The library and Open Science

2.4.1 Collaboration and multilevel governance

Just as for information science, open access to scientific publications is the cornerstone of Open Science. For librarianship, open research data is one of the most significant contemporary contributions that STL⁷ can offer to the community science.

A main definition of open data [31] is “data that can be freely used, reused, and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike” (Guide). Open access to data is the first step of research, its openness can inspire, define, and invigorate research activity. It constitutes the first need of scientific communities and demands from libraries knowledge in efficient and stable storage, data management plans, curation, preservation, formats, and standards, in addition to an understanding of technologies to ensure reuse and sharing [32], to ensure stability, scientific integrity, and collaboration [33]. In the words of Stanton et al. [34]: “large, collaboratively managed datasets have become essential to many scientific and engineering endeavors, and their management has increased the need for eScience professionals who extend librarianship into solving large-scale information management problems for researchers and engineers” (p. 79).

Open Science thrives when datasets are accessible and can be shared. Research data management embraces all the product and service characteristics of STL. It is the protagonism conquered “achieved by taking over the creation and maintenance of institutional repositories. This is a logical consequence of library philosophy that embraces the idea of information for everyone” ([35], p. 292).

According to Jones [36], the purpose of repositories, in turn, has been extended to include raw research data, their preservation, and reuse, and requires additional investment and skills from libraries and librarians, even though “many of the data management requirements involve the kind of work in which librarians already have expertise-organizing information, applying metadata standards, and providing access to information” (Antell [37] apud [33], (p. 7)).

Edwards et al. [38] go further by stating that researchers, when they have time, organize data for themselves or at most in their field of research and not in an interoperable, universal, and shareable way: “just as with data themselves, creating, handling, and managing metadata products always exacts a cost in time, energy, and attention (…) an additional burden on top of their primary work. Research scientists’ main interest, after all, is in using data, not in describing them for the benefit of invisible, unknown future users, to whom they are not accountable and from whom they receive little if any benefit” (p. 673).

The management of scientific and technological research data is a great opportunity for S&T libraries, also leading them to the preservation and curation activities. The White Paper Envisioning the future of scientific research libraries: a discussion, produced in 2012, advocated the changes needed by libraries and librarians for 21st-century research. How contemporary research information is collected, organized, used, and disseminated, and in particular the movement toward collaboration. Collaboration is particularly timely in addressing the problems of open access to scientific research data, which deals with concerns common to science and technology. It “involves a process of joint decision-making among key stakeholders of a problem domain about the future of that domain” ([39], p. 11) to develop a comprehensive approach to understanding a problem and then acting collectively to solve it.

According to Vangen and Huxham [40], working collaboratively across intra- and inter-organizational boundaries is an indispensable component of organizational life, a way of dealing with issues that cannot be addressed by any one organization acting alone. Historically, libraries have been collaborative, and the future of scholarly research data management requires collaboration at multiple levels and even requires multilevel governance–—one of the keys to the survival and success of the academic library in the future. The term multilevel governance and its understanding have spread in various fields of knowledge from political science, international relations, political economy, and public administration. The arrangement connects related and distinct fields around a common interest. The actors involved in multilevel governance consistently act on behalf of the common good and seek a common good as the distinguishing element of multilevel governance from other governance models. These actors will act from political, economic, cultural, social, or scientific coalitions, for example, in coproduction, defined as “the process through which inputs used to produce a good or service are contributed by individuals who are not in the same organization” ([41], p. 1073).

From this, it is possible to define multilevel governance [42] “as a set of general-purpose or functional jurisdictions that enjoy some degree of autonomy within a common governance arrangement and whose actors claim to engage in an enduring interaction in pursuit of a common good” (p. 4). Multilevel governance in STL is a complex system of governance for the common good, transcends the boundaries of the library in collaborative, multilevel, and multidimensional decision-making processes, involving researchers, information managers, collaborators, partners, and users, in the search for collective solutions for the management and dissemination of information and scientific and technological research data. Effectively, organizational relationships, including relationships in STL, encompass a wide range of arrangements to achieve common goals. At the core of this is a collaboration [43], “an ongoing negotiation of relationships by individuals who are both participants in the collaboration and, at the same time, accountable to and representative of the diverse organizations and communities involved in, and affected by, it” (p. 596).

In support of this common good is the philosophical foundation of Open Science. The White Paper [44], which specifically brings out the significant opportunity for library collaboration for Open Science, points out the following actions:

1. Encourage strategic thinking about data sharing;

2. support the promotion of Open Science standards and policies;

3. assist in the discovery of open research;

4. foster partnerships with those acting in Open Science;

5. facilitate collaborations;

6. participate in inter-institutional projects that leverage open data; and

7. assist, participate, create, and conduct plans for data management, data warehouses, storage and preservation technologies, and infrastructures such as repositories and data curation.

2.4.2 The Paradigm of Co-Production and Co-Creation.

In the collaborative environment, the term co-creation, introduced in 2004 [45], appears to conceptualize the processes that facilitate the development of a collective approach to a problem, from a situation in which everyone can “contribute their different perspectives and competencies to the process, and facilitate the joint and shared development of solutions” (p. 5).

The main objective of the co-creative approach is to facilitate political decision-making through a form of collaborative process design that considers and integrates the widest and most diverse range of relevant perspectives possible [45]. Libraries and librarians are deeply involved in collaborative processes of co-creation of scientific and technological knowledge, fully meeting the description of co-creation and co-production.

Janke and Rush [46] state that librarians (and information professionals) are co-producers of research, as they contribute their expertise throughout the process of knowledge development and dissemination, supporting the quality, improvement, and advancement of research, although “librarians may not always see their added value, or more strongly, the central role they could play on research teams” (p. 120). The authors state that: “every research team needs a librarian who is a core member of the investigative team and not a peripheral member. All too often researchers undervalue and underutilize their expertise because of a lack of awareness of the extent of their skill sets or certain assumptions they have about their contributions to research endeavors” (p. 118).

2.4.3 The pragmatic wrapping of current scientific information

Engaging in Open Science requires broadening the understanding of access to scientific information. Leading to the consolidation of the term Information Scientist, proposed by Jason Farradane in 1953, on the occasion of the publication of Information service in the industry [47], followed a decade later, in 1961 and 1962 by the conferences of the Georgia Institute of Technology entitled Training Science Information Specialists, founding events of Information Science⁸. The emergent area of Information Science, in the 1960s, was the recognition of a new trend in the scientific field. Its pioneering addresses to the engineer Alexander Ivanovich Mikhaïlov (1905–1988), a member of the founding team of the Russian Institute of Scientific and Technological Information (Viniti) in 1952, he envisaged a career closely linked to the development of scientific and technological information, under the name informatika. He is the main and most influential Russian theorist to address the issue of information production and management in science and technology, an expression used to designate the knowledge obtained from scientific and technological research and development activities. It is an essential input and final product of research and has strategic importance in the development of society.

A significant milestone for Information Science and Technology is the 1963 “Report Science, government, and information: The responsibilities of the technical community and the government in the transfer of information, known as the Weinberg Report”⁹ [49]. In its summary and major recommendations, it states that to achieve relevance in the results of science and technology, adequate information must be provided for its development. It also emphasizes that the “transfer of information is an inseparable part of research and development. All those concerned (…) must accept responsibility for the transfer of information in the same degree and spirit that they accept responsibility for research and development itself” (p. 4). The Weinberg Report urges each public institution engaged in science and technology to accept its responsibility for information activities in areas relevant to the fulfillment of its mission while maintaining its information supply.

Currently, as envisioned in the 1960s and according to the speed of the information society, research is intrinsically linked to the provision of scientific information, especially current scientific information, which can be used in various contexts, from decisions on laboratory funding to access to research data. It is indispensable for the planning and governance of national research, helping to define priorities, allocate funding, and monitor performance. Having the information available to base decisions for scientific and technological development is a capital condition to achieve good results.

However, monitoring the research chain is an ambitious ideal that assumes that the flow of information in the process is organized coherently and reliably, requiring an information system that includes all the steps that contribute to the realization of the research. This system is often described as the Current Research Information System or better known by its acronym CRIS. Interchangeably it may be referred to by the terms Research Information Management System (RIM), Virtual Research Environments, or Research Management Systems, all invoking the idea of information about research management.

The purpose of a CRIS, in effect, is to handle, store, integrate, retrieve, curate, share, and manage information from all phases of scientific research, from inception to publication of its results. It integrates research data from various other systems, to bring together information relevant to the research procedure in a single database, from cooperation opportunities to the dissemination of research results. In general, the information stored in a CRIS includes:

1. Research projects (title, description, duration, academic field, language, whether it is at the institutional or national, or international level, participating institutions, among others);

2. Researchers (name, affiliations, role in research, area of expertise, educational background, awards, among others);

3. Organizations involved (name, function or position in research, type of organization, partnerships, among others);

4. Research input (amount of resources invested in research, time, infrastructure, funding sources, among others);

5. research output (publications, data, patents, awards, products, among others); and

6. the relationships among all these entities.

Studies on research information management show that standardization, harmonization, and integration of research information often bring great challenges. However, the benefits generated from an integrated dataset of research information are also a major driver of innovation and so Simons [50] points out that CRISs increasingly tend to get a central and fundamental position in this scenario, presenting the idea in Figures 4 and 5.

Figure 4.

The centrality of CRIS in the aggregation of information from the scientific and technological research ecosystem (source: Simons [50]).

Figure 5.

Framework Open Science collaborative environment in science and technology libraries.

Each element of the ecosystem refers to:

• Funding organizations: distribution of programs, evaluation of results, location of reviewers

• Libraries: acquisition, dissemination

• Researchers: finding collaborations, visibility, profile, reputation, management

• Decision makers: performance, strategic decisions, priorities, comparisons between countries

• Project managers: overall view, the performance of ongoing activities

• Intermediaries and brokers: finding research results of potential markets or innovation value.

• Teaching team: integration of relevant information into lectures and training

• Research organizations: integration and strategic management of interoperability, profiling

• Editors: finding reviewers

• General public: information and education, interest

• Media: distribution and communication

• Companies and professionals: finding information for participation in projects, partnerships, and use of results.

The underlying principles of CRIS lead compulsorily to the concept of Open Science. Biesenbender et al. [51] point out that, on the one hand, initiatives of open access to scientific information and open data provide links to the CRIS through the interoperability of institutional repositories and data archives. On the other hand, scientists can benefit from CRIS solutions that enable the efficient reuse of information, such as a researcher’s record of open-access publications. The CRIS ecosystem, therefore, can be easily perceived as a structuring part of the concept of Open Science.

2.5 Conceptual framework

The concepts presented in this chapter are graphically represented in the framework below, entitled Open Science Collaborative Environment in Science and Technology Libraries.

2.6 Open Science challenges

Open Science is considered one of the main drivers of scientific and technological research. It defends the principles of transparency and accessibility of scientific knowledge, whose main benefits are the strengthening of scientific rigor, increased reliability, acceleration of knowledge dissemination, broader and more inclusive participation of sectors of society in scientific and technological research, effective use of resources and open access to scientific publishing, among others.

However, there are significant challenges to be considered in the adoption of policies in its promotion, among them, the ethical and legal restrictions. In this context are the aspects of personal data protection, intellectual property, and contractual issues. On the other hand, there are the lack of resources, the lack of qualified personnel, the operational issues of the organizations, components that are reflected in the concern to ensure the management, quality and security of shared data, for example.

The complex nature of Open Science, of course, evokes the participation of various stakeholders, in itself a challenging context, which requires promoting the engagement of segments of society both for the co-production of knowledge, analysis, sharing, funding, resources, access to collaborative networks of information and publications in open access, the latter considered the crucial component of Open Science [52], with its own specific challenges. Among them, the same author points out that many researchers who support Open Science do not like the concept of paying to publish, and that open access publishing has given rise to predatory journals, those that publish low-quality articles without adequate peer review in exchange for publication fees. Other problems pointed out by the author are: who should bear the expenses of open access publishing, how to provide equal opportunities for all countries, how to deal with research biases since authors tend to present only positive results, and how open access publication models will evolve.

3. Final considerations

In the conceptual framework that relates S&T library, and Open Science are the three basic rights to use, reuse, and shared knowledge, supported by open digital technologies that guarantee its realization, being, effectively, the transformation of scientific practice. The rise of this ideal must also be represented by the positive consequences of the open predicate: research then becomes more inclusive and more interdisciplinary. Its philosophical basis leads to the understanding that it is necessary to consider Open Science as a possibility to achieve the common good, as advocated by Robert K. Merton’s sociology of science. It is achieved through full access to knowledge of science and technology.

In the wake of the philosophy of Open Science are concepts related to open knowledge, such as open-access publication and open data, both with profound significance for librarianship and information science. Science and technology libraries, in particular, regain the leading role in the value chain of scientific and technological research by taking on the creation and maintenance of institutional repositories, expanded to include scientific and technological research data. In dealing effectively with research data, libraries, and librarians need to be prepared to deal with data management, which includes theoretical knowledge of information and computer sciences, for storage, representation, curation, preservation, formats, and standards, to achieve full utilization, reuse, sharing, and wide dissemination.

The discussion, however, does not end with the questions of competence and philosophy. It moves into the political and organizational chapters since Open Science involves intense governance and collaboration. The history of librarianship and the epistemology of information studies show that libraries are collaborative, which is a characteristic (and necessity) of scientific research data management, which requires collaboration across multiple levels and dimensions. Multilevel governance emerges in this scenario for the success of the S&T library of the future, it guides the establishment of political, economic, cultural, social, and scientific coalitions for work in co-production and co-creation, of which librarians should feel as part of the team. Multilevel governance in S&T libraries is a complex system of governance for the common good, it transcends the boundaries of the library in collaborative, multilevel, and multidimensional decision-making processes involving researchers, information managers, collaborators, partners, and users in the search for collective solutions for the management and dissemination of scientific and technological research information and data.

Indeed, co-creative and co-production processes strengthen the viability of joint solutions, since they recognize that no single actor in the process can understand the problem alone and provide a solution. In summary, one can see, in the advancement of Open Science, that the relevance and necessity of librarianship and information science advance concurrently, which in practice is already possible to observe, in the area already deeply engaged in Open Science practices. Librarians and in particular information scientists are mobilized and ready to collaborate in the challenging area of data management, with actions that include selection, storage, organization, representation, validation, and dissemination of data. All actions, to ensure the location, use, sharing, comparison, cross-referencing, and preservation of multidisciplinary data that matter for scientific and technological research. The complexity of the moment for the professions and the institutions involved is in the transition to a world where open access to research will be the standard procedure.

Among the policy options at various levels of the organization to realize multilevel governance in support to Open Science is the pragmatic enveloping of scientific information actions. In particular the monitoring of the current research chain, often described under the terminology current research information system (CRIS), also known as research information management system (RIM) or virtual research environments or research management systems, all invoking the idea of research management information, which in synthesis is information available to make possible the scientific and technological development.

The purpose of a CRIS is the treatment, storage, integration, retrieval, curation, sharing, and management of information in all phases of scientific research, from the beginning to the publication of its results.

Finally, the underlying principles of the CRIS system, compulsorily and reciprocally, lead to the concept of Open Science in several ways. On the one hand, open data and open access to scientific information initiatives provide links to the CRIS through the interoperability of institutional repositories and archives of data. On the other hand, scientists can benefit from CRIS solutions that allow the efficient reuse of information in open access. It is easily perceptive that both are structuring parts of each other.

3.1 Future enhancement

This chapter has dealt with the interplay between S&T libraries, Open Science, organizational collaboration, multilevel governance, and current scientific information. These are complex dimensions of the scientific, policy, and organizational environment, which certainly deserve further exploration and revision. Immediately, it is possible to assess the absence of in-depth discussion about the technological infrastructure to support scientific research, such as for capturing and curating, visualizing and analyzing Open Science data.

Another important gap in this work is the need to deepen the other elements of Open Science (registered in Figure 2), such as, for example, the open engagement of social actors, which, like Open Science, bring a new paradigm in the creation of scientific and technological knowledge, with the respective experiential and situational knowledge, equally relevant in the search for true knowledge.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (IBICT) for supporting the publication of this work and for sharing the institution’s knowledge in the fields of Open Science, Current Research Information System (CRIS) and Science and Technology Libraries (STL).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.