Open Access Week

October 24-30, 2011 is Open Access Week. What is open access? To give you an idea, here is a short video (and other material), created by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL).

Simply put, “Open access (OA) is the free availability of scholarly journal publications over the Internet.” The prices libraries pay for both print and online access to scholarly journals have increased dramatically. Most university libraries have been forced to continually review their list of serials and make cuts. The open access movement takes advantage of the internet for publishing and, although there are various models, the commonality is no or minimal cost. The publishers of scholarly journals can make considerable profits and, in charging so much for “their” product, they manage to undemocratically restrict access to research. A wide-spread open access movement has the potential to democratize access to current research.

One of the traditional measures for deciding tenure is the degree to which a candidate has published in academic journals. Because this remains an important part of the tenure process, publishers of scholarly journals continue to hold considerable power. However, there is a growing move towards accepting open access publishing, which can also be peer-reviewed.

Here are just a few of the arguments in favour of open access publishing:

·         Open access articles are read by more people than articles that are behind fee barriers
·         Increased access to articles can increase an author’s impact
·         Articles based on publicly-funded research should be freely available to the public
·         All countries, but especially the poorest countries, will benefit from this increased access

Institutional Repositories (IR) are another means by which research can be shared, and the UFV Library is in the early stages of exploring the possible establishment of one. Institutional repositories are online locations for the collection, preservation, and dissemination of the digital output of an institution. Submissions to an IR could include student work (thesis, dissertations, etc.) and faculty and staff work (previously published articles, course notes, learning objects, administrative documents, etc.). An IR can increase an institution’s profile to the outside world and can also increase communication and collaboration within an institution. Over 80% of CARL institutions have institutional repositories. Look for the UFV Library to begin soliciting campus input on such a project for our institution.

During Open Access Week, Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) is sponsoring two live webcasts:

Tuesday, October 25, 2011.

12:00-1:20pm PT/1:00-2:20pm MT/ 2:00-3:20pm CT

What Problems Are We Trying To Fix? - Dr. David Rosenthal, Chief Scientist, LOCKSS Program, Stanford University

Event is live webcasted to COPPUL Libraries from UBC at:

<http://mediasite.mediagroup.ubc.ca/MediaGroup/Viewer/?peid=e6fc857b7cfb4d9b987166dba41834431d>

Wednesday, October 26, 2011.
11:00-11:55am PT/12:00-12:55 MT/ 1:00-1:55pm CT

OpenMedia and its Push for Internet Openness - What Canadian Citizens Should know. - Reilly Yeo Managing Director, Open Media.
Event is live webcasted to COPPUL Libraries from UBC at: <http://mediasite.mediagroup.ubc.ca/MediaGroup/Viewer/?peid=0547dc47a60347bfa5f5a951ef92d4f81d>

Posted by Brenda