DUBLIN, Ohio, 31 March 2021—OCLC and LIBER announced today the launch of a virtual workshop series, Building strategic relationships to advance open scholarship at your institution, to focus on how librarians can develop strategic relationships across their universities to advance open scholarship.

The series, to run 4-18 May, is the next stage of OCLC and LIBER's ongoing partnership to explore topics relating to open science, which began in 2020 with the OCLC-LIBER Open Science Discussion Series.

One of the key findings from the 2020 series was that library staff felt ill-equipped to connect in an impactful way with the array of non-library stakeholders essential for open science success. Participants acknowledged that "open science must be a collective effort," and so work to further develop the skills needed to promote collaboration and communication has been welcomed as a positive next step.

Speaking of the initiative, Astrid Verheusen, Executive Director, LIBER, said, "Developing the skills of library staff and researchers is high on LIBER's agenda. As part of this workshop, we hope to reach yet another target group—mid-level library managers and practitioners—and yet another skill set which is that of social interoperability. I am sure that the combined expertise of OCLC and LIBER will contribute to the success of the workshop series."

Rachel Frick, Executive Director, OCLC Research Library Partnership, added, "We're delighted to be working with LIBER again to help library staff develop skills that will prove vital if open scholarship is to flourish. Once again, we see huge benefits in exploring these issues together as European and North American libraries, when so much research today is conducted across multiple institutions and geographies."

The programming of the workshop is based upon the OCLC Research Report, Social Interoperability in Research Support: Cross-Campus Partnerships and the University Research Enterprise. The workshop series is specifically targeted at mid-level library professionals and practitioners. Each of the three workshop sessions will include a combination of presentations and small group discussion activities, facilitated by the authors of the Social Interoperability report and hosted by LIBER.

Participants are expected to gain an increased understanding of why cross-campus collaboration can be so difficult, who the key stakeholders are and what they care about. It is expected that participants will return to their institutions with strategies and tactics to apply in relationship development.

This workshop series is a pilot effort exclusively for OCLC Research Library Partnership affiliates and LIBER members and numbers are strictly limited. The organizations will be working together to assess the pilot and explore if this training exercise can be scaled to support more librarians.

For more information or to register, visit the workshop series page.

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