Speaking of Open AccessBeth Schuck, Cline Library (April 2011)

Open Access Publishing is:

• Open access (OA) refers to unrestricted online access to articles published in scholarly journals, and increasingly also book chapters or monographs.

Open Access Publishing

• Why now?• Why is it important?• Why is it challenging?

Why now?

Continuing Issues

• Internet/Networked communications allow for open sharing of ideas

• Inflationary costs for scholarly books/journals paired with decreasing funding

• Institutional focus on publishing for tenure/promotion

Why Now, continued?

New Initiatives

• Requirements of Funders – NIH

• Resolutions on Open Access Publishing from faculty. (Harvard, VCU, etc.)

• Repositories assist in emphasizing institutional contributions during time of increased accountability

Why is it Important?

Benefits of Open Access

• Rights of faculty authors’ retained in this type of model

• Reputation of University benefits from increased exposure of faculty output

• Realize international and interdisciplinary partnerships via this model and increased citation rates

Why is it challenging?

Barriers

• Promotion and Tenure Traditions

• Prohibitive costs to authors

• Poor dissemination of information/benefits of open access model- (librarians included here.)

Why is it challenging, continued?

Solutions• Physics and Mathematics use of

arXiv.org (@Cornell University)• Cost sharing by Universities for OA fees

(Berkeley, UNC-Chapel Hill)• Frank discussions by faculty in

departments and colleges

Discussion

• Questions?

OA Resources

• arXiv.org http://arxiv.org/

• Directory of Open Access Journals http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=home&uiLanguage=en

• Public Library of Science http://www.plos.org/

• Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/• OA Bibliography http://

www.digital-scholarship.org/oab/oab.htm

• Open Humanities Press http://openhumanitiespress.org/resources.html

Links to Studies related to OA

• Study published in 2010 showed that of the total output of peer-reviewed articles roughly 20% could be found Openly Accessible. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011273

• Bibliography of Studies on OA publishing leading to higher citation rates http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html

• Understanding the Serials Crisis for Libraries http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/newslettersnewsletterbucketacademicnewswire/890009-440/periodicals_price_survey_2011_under.html.csp