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National Library of Sweden

Kungliga biblioteket (KB)

Mission

NLS is funded by public funds and therefore works to ensure that cultural heritage and research are made openly available to all.

Contribution to Open Science

Since 2006, when signing the Berlin Declaration, the National Library of Sweden (NLS) has worked with advancing open access to scholarly output. NLS has thus undertaken to promote free access on the internet to scientific information and cultural heritage. The goal is for the results of publicly funded research to be free to read, download, process and disseminate. In 2017 NLS received an appropriation directive from the Swedish Government to act as a national coordinating body in the work towards a transition to open access to scholarly publications.

Goals and objectives

The national goal is that all scientific publications resulting from research financed with public funds should be published immediately open access and that research data, on which the scholarly publication is based, should be made open access together with the publication.


The national approach is that the products of research must meet the FAIR principles as far as possible, that scientific publications arising from publicly funded research should be openly accessible immediately on publication from 2021 at the latest, and that the cost of scientific publication must be transparent.

It is a shared responsibility for all stakeholders within the research system to work towards this goal.
  • Member since
    2020
Contact Info
Anna Lundén
Head of division
Services

A brief overview of the “services” you are offering and the relevant stakeholders  

  • NLS collects statistics showing the development of open access of scholarly publications in Sweden. 
  • NLS monitors HEIs expenditure for scholarly literature and open access publishing in Sweden. 
  • NLS develops a national platform for scholarly Open Access journals in Sweden www.publicera.kb.se  
    NLS develops and implements criteria for FAIR principles to research publications. 
  • NLS administrates, since 1996, the Bibsam consortium negotiating read & publish agreements on behalf of HEIs, governmental agencies and research institutes. 
  • NLS provides a check­list for Open Access terms intended for the use of consortium or library staff negotiating open access agreements with publishers. It is aligned with ESAC:s recommendations. 
  • NLS maintains a webpage with alternative routes to scholarly articles and research outputs 
  • NLS maintains a FAQ webpage on Creative Commons for researchers.