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Abstract

Strengthening the Academic Library-society Connection through Citizen Science

Academic libraries in the Baltic countries have, for over a decade, been actively engaged in open science. In recent years, the involvement of citizens in open science has increased, as the new Horizon Europe research and innovation-funding programme expects its projects to engage citizens or civil society organisations. However, participation in citizen science projects in libraries is still in the early stages of development.

The LibOCS (University libraries strengthening the academia-society connection through citizen science in the Baltics) project was launched in 2022 with the support of the Erasmus+ programme. Its goal is to enhance the connections between the academic community and society through open citizen science, with the involvement of Baltic research libraries. Project partners include the University of Tartu and Tallinn University of Technology from Estonia, the University of Latvia from Latvia, and Kaunas University of Technology and Vytautas Magnus University from Lithuania. Additionally, the project is supported by the partners Web2Learn from Greece and Immer Besser GmbH from Germany, who have participated in citizen science projects.

LibOCS has five objectives for advancing citizen science and open science initiatives in the Baltic region. The first objective focuses on mapping the drivers and barriers of civic engagement in libraries. The second objective aims to establish and sustain a meaningful dialogue and action plan among higher education teaching/research staff and librarians in the Baltic States.

The third objective emphasises the importance of training initiatives to enhance the skills of academic and library personnel in the realms of citizen science and open science. The team created an open access course (Citizen Science for Librarians: A Self-Paced Learning Course) comprising of five modules. The fourth objective seeks institutional change by testing and implementing a single point of contact for citizen science within the participating LibOCS universities. This initiative could optimise and stream citizen science efforts within academic institutions.

Finally, the team will create an impactful open access toolkit for librarians, specifically focusing on citizen science. This toolkit, comprising open educational resources (OER), is intended to be openly accessible for reuse and repurposing within the librarian community.

The UT Library’s LibOCS working group includes Director of Development Liisi Lembinen, Head of the Department of Subject Librarians Lilian Neerut, and subject librarian Svea Kaseorg. The LibOCS project is set to conclude in the summer of 2024.