In recent years, the open science movement has become the new international standard, all with the aim of making scientific research accessible to all levels of society. Key aspects include providing insight into the process and research findings, as well as sharing them with society.
The KB has also embraced the principles of open science, as it is our goal to build bridges between academia and society. We are committed to empowering everyone to do research themselves and thereby fostering lifelong learning in the process.
The KB's open science efforts include:
- Using various library services to improve the accessibility of scientific open access publications.
- Ensuring that scientific publications remain accessible in the future.
- Designing our data services to make them accessible to researchers. We are also committed to organising our data in accordance with the principles of open science.
- Supporting scientific projects on open access.
What we do
Access to more open access publications
People who are not affiliated with a university, e.g. as a student or researcher, often do not have access to resources found in university libraries. Our resource directory lets users easily filter freely accessible sources. KB members also have access to LeanLibrary. All research published by authors affiliated with the KB is shared on the free platform Zenodo.
Keeping scientific publications accessible for the future
The KB stores all texts published in and about the Netherlands, either in hard copy or digital form, in its very own repository: the (e)Depot of Dutch Publications. This repository also contains all digital publications from Dutch academic publishers, as well as the contents of the archives of 13 universities, known as Institutional Repositories. The KB therefore stores the output of almost all Dutch universities.
Data services for scientific use
Data are the lifeblood of science, and the KB and its digital heritage network partners have a lot of data. The KB makes its data accessible to anyone who wants to research the KB collection through platforms such as Delpher and DBNL. Through the KB Lab, researchers at Dutch universities can experiment with KB datasets and tools. In the coming years, the KB will move to further organise its data according to the open science principles of FAIR Data: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.
To improve data accessibility in the future, the KB has joined Clariah, a Dutch network for humanities researchers. Organisations work together within Clariah to provide user-friendly digital resources for researchers, organised according to the FAIR principles. We also make our copyright-free data files available through services offered by Wikimedia.
Support for open access projects
Providing open access is particularly challenging in the humanities and social sciences, which includes fields such as psychology. Many books are published in the humanities, most of which cannot be accessed for free. The KB therefore supports projects that offer a better approach, such as the Open Library of Humanities, Punctum Books and the OAPEN Library Programme.
The KB and the National Open Science Programme (NPOS)
- National Open Science Plan (2017)
- Open Access publishing for KB staff (policy consolidated in 2021)
- LeanLibrary implemented in 2020
- Find Open Access Publications page
- Member of the NPOS Advisory Council
- A practical guide to preprints: accelerating scholarly communication