🚨 If AI #discovery is the sports car, then #OpenAbstracts are the fuel.

Loss of abstracts from major publishers (Elsevier, SpringerNature…) means:
❌ weaker #AIDiscovery
❌ reduced #searchability
❌ setbacks for #OpenScience & #bibliometrics

At stake: not just tools, but researchers’ ability to scope, filter & save time.

👉 We need advocacy for open #metadata
👉 Researcher awareness of limits & #biases
👉 Higher #OpenAccess rates

https://open.substack.com/pub/aarontay/p/the-petrol-tank-for-ai-discovery

#libraries #AIResearch #scholcomm #AI

The Petrol Tank for AI Discovery Might be Running Dry as Publishers close access to scholarly content such as abstracts due to AI incentives

Elicit.com, Consensus, and Undermind.ai are among the new leading comprehensive cross-disciplinary “AI-powered academic search engines” today.

Aaron Tay's Musings about Librarianship

We are seeing increased commodification of abstracts - perhaps not surprising given their importance in GenAI.

In 2022, SpringerNature had abstracts from
'their' non-open access articles removed from @OpenAlex

Now Elsevier appears to have done the same.

https://github.com/ourresearch/openalex-guts/commit/b85b3bc77cf9c0f3bd162426a2ba0dacdc951065

Needless to say, neither provide abstracts for these articles to @crossref either: https://i4oa.org/#:~:text=The%20following%20figure.

Is this how open we want research abstracts to be?

#openmetadata #openabstracts
#barcelonadeclaration

do not store closed elsevier abstract · ourresearch/openalex-guts@b85b3bc

The guts for computing data for OpenAlex. For more, see https://openalex.org/. - do not store closed elsevier abstract · ourresearch/openalex-guts@b85b3bc

GitHub

So Elsevier is selling abstracts to be used in third-party discovery services (this is me assuming there is a monetary transaction)

https://www.sspnet.org/community/news/cactus-and-elsevier-join-hands-to-bring-19m-elsevier-research-abstracts-to-researchers-mobile-devices

The same Elsevier that, unlike many other publishers*, does not make abstracts publicly available through @crossref

*see https://i4oa.org/#:~:text=figure

#openabstracts #I4OA

Cactus and Elsevier Join Hands to Bring 19M+ Elsevier Research Abstracts to Researchers’ Mobile Devices

Member News Release | The latest news from across the scholarly publishing and communications industry.

SSP Society for Scholarly Publishing

Some great strides have been made 2023 in providing abstracts through Crossref #openabstracts

In this @crossref
blogpost, I am highlighting some publishers (large and small) who contributed to this: I4OA Hall of Fame - 2023 edition

https://www.crossref.org/blog/i4oa-hall-of-fame-2023-edition/

#openabstracts #openmetadata #I4OA

I4OA Hall of Fame - 2023 edition - Crossref

The Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA) was launched in September 2020 to advocate and promote the unrestricted availability of the abstracts of the world’s scholarly publications, particularly journal articles and book chapters, in trusted repositories where they are open and machine-accessible. I4OA calls on all scholarly publishers to open the abstracts of their published works and, where possible, to submit them to Crossref.

www.crossref.org

OpenCitations is part of the CoARA Working Group Towards Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment (OI4RRA)

 https://doi.org/10.59350/wpdyk-ad420 #OpenAbstracts #OpenAcademicAnalytics #OpenAccess #OpenScholarship #OpenScience

OpenCitations is part of the CoARA Working Group Towards Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment (OI4RRA)

Last March, the  Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) launched its call for members to propose Working Groups and National Chapters.

OpenCitations blog

#OpenAccess is naturally ideal, but being allowed to collect, analyse & publish their abstracts would already help a lot. #OpenAbstracts
https://medium.com/a-academic-librarians-thoughts-on-open-access/why-openly-available-abstracts-are-important-overview-of-the-current-state-of-affairs-bb7bde1ed751

We would be happy to scrape the abstracts from the web. Is there a group with good lawyers in the Open Community willing to stand up to the publisher & publish the abstracts? #PleaseBoost

Some claim abstracts are part of the EU Text & Data Mining exception for research. But the I4OA claims this is not allowed. https://i4oa.org

Why openly available abstracts are important — overview of the current state of affairs

Authors: Bianca Kramer (Utrecht University Library), Aaron Tay (SMU Libraries, Singapore Management University), Ludo Waltman (Centre for…