Karin Dalziel

// karin.dalziel.org // karin@nirak.net // May 4, 2007

Open Access for Librarians:What, Why, and How?

I hear occasionally about how open access publications are not aviable option for scholars to publish in. In

their essay

Building the Profession-Research, Creative Activities, and Publication by AcademicLibrarians

, Joan Beam and Cathy Cranston interviewed three newlibrarians about their publishing habits

"So far, each new librarianhas chosen well-established journals in which to publish. Although allwere aware of open-access journals in their field, they did not feelthat it was worth the risk to publish in these lesser-known journals"(

Gregory,

2005, p. 40). This sentiment is popular with scholars, butlibrarians are uniquely positioned to fight it. In the tenure andreview process, librarians can explain the decision to publish in openaccess literature with authority, and explain to the review committeethe reasons for choosing open access publishing.

Librarians need to be informed of open accesspublishing methods and ideology because it isbecoming an increasing force in scholarly literature.

What

is open access?

Open access (OA) means immediate, free andunrestricted online access to digital scholarly material,primarily peer-reviewed research articles in scholarly journals. OA was made possible by the advent of theinternet. (Wikipedia)There are two types of open access:

Self-archiving

,and

open access journals

Self-archiving:

Users self publish (usually in an institutional ortopical repository) and conform to OAI standards so search enginescan treat the separate archives as one. These archives often containpre- or post-print material that is also submitted to a print journal, orit may contain material unpublished in other formats.

Open access journals:

These are often peer reviewed journals thatare free and open to the public. Funding for the journal may come ina variety of ways

─

institutional support, grants, or even through thepeople that submit to the journal.

Karin Dalziel

// karin.dalziel.org // karin@nirak.net // May 4, 2007

Why

Open Access?Not everyone has access. This may bebecause of

money

location

.Open access enables global

communication

and

collaboration

Open access might keep

prices

and

permissions

reasonable.

How

can librarians help?

Start by reading and using open access journals!

Talk

about it.

Open access suffers from many people not knowing it exists. Talkabout it with others, offer a brownbag, and show open accessresources in reference interviews.

Submit

to open access journals and archives

There is an open access Journal especially for Library students:

the Library Student Journal

<http://informatics.buffalo.edu/org/lsj/>which accept submissions from any student studying Library andInformation Science. You can also submit papers, presentations, and other items (the siteeven contains podcasts!) to the E-LIS repository.<http://eprints.rclis.org/> which “aims to further the Open Accessphilosophy by making available papers in LIS and related fields”(2007).

Publish

Bigger libraries may start large initiatives like the Lewis and Clark<http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/> or Walt Whitman<http://www.whitmanarchive.org/> archives, but smaller librariescan start sites of local interest.

Karin Dalziel

// karin.dalziel.org // karin@nirak.net // May 4, 2007

Sources Cited.

Amory, A., Dubbeld, C., & Peters, D. (2004). Open content, openaccess and open source?

Ingede: Journal of African Scholarship

(2), 1-12.Cohen, L. (November 20, 2006). The coming end of completedpublications.

Library 2.0: An Academic's Perspective.

Retrieved March 26, 2007 fromhttp://liblogs.albany.edu/library20/2006/11/the_coming_end_of_completed_pu.htmlDonovan, G., & Estlund, K. (2007). New librarians and scholarlycommunication: Get involved.

College & Research Libraries

,68(3), 155-158. Retrieved April 16, 2007, from Wilson Web.E-LIS. (2007). Welcome to Eprints for LIS. Retrieved May 3, 2007,from http://eprints.rclis.org/Gregory, G. (2005). The successful academic librarian : Winningstrategies from library leaders. Medford N.J.: InformationToday Inc.Salo, D. (December 15, 2006). Why I am the enemy.

Caveat Lector

.Retrieved April 16, 2007, fromhttp://cavlec.yarinareth.net/archives/2006/12/15/why-i-am-the-enemy/Suber, P. (February 2003). Introduction to open access for librarians.Retrieved April 15, 2007, fromhttp://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/acrl.htmSuber, P. (2007). Trends favoring open access.

SPARC Open Access Newsletter

. Retrieved May 3, 2007, fromhttp://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/05-02-07.htmWikipedia. (01:21, 14 April 2007). Open access.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

. Retrieved April 27, 2007, fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access

Other Selected Resources.

Antelman, K. (2004). Do open-access articles have a greater researchimpact?

College and Research Libraries

, 65(5), 372-382.Chan, L., Cuplinskas, D., Eisen, M., Friend, F., Genova, Y., Guédon,J., et al. (2002). Budapest Open Access Initiative. Retrieved April 27, 2007, fromhttp://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtmlMorgan, E.L. (2004). Open access publishing. Retrieved April 16,2007, from http://infomotions.com/musings/open-access/open-