Library News

Open Access Week 2020

Open Access Week, which runs from October 19-26 (the third week of October), offers us time to explore the benefits of open versus subscribed research materials.

Briefly, open access (OA) describes books, articles and other scholarly writings that are made available to the public free of charge, with limited copyright and licensing restrictions.  OA publishing follows similar review strategies as other peer-reviewed entities, thus articles and books have similar merit.

While free to the end user, OA is not inherently free as there are production and hosting costs, but supporters of OA research often point out that the rising costs of scholarly journals, books and textbooks can be prohibitive to learning and sharing of research studies.  Inclusivity is key for educating a community!

How can you explore OA scholarship?

• Check out the Libraries' Open Access collections.   Any database in our A-Z list with an open lock symbol next to it contains freely accessible material.
• When browsing the QuickSearch publications (ejournals A-Z), look for the open lock symbols.  This lets you know that you don't need a subscription for access.  Also try limiting search results by clicking the box next to "open access" (under "catalog only").  Open Access articles are not embedded into QuickSearch so you will still need to click the links to go to the journal/book sites.  But, using QuickSearch allows you to save time and search lots of open access databases at once.

• Some of our databases have OA articles or free content included.  Look for "Open Access," "Free content," or "contains open access" next to the journal title or as a database limiter.  Titles that contain open access also include subscribed material so you will not have access to all articles.  If you can't access something, there is always interlibrary loan.
• Faculty members: check out open textbook collections.  Is there an introductory text that publishes a new edition every year and costs a lot to procure?  Perhaps an OA alternative would help.  Many textbooks include reviews from faculty members across the country!
• Take a look at the Libraries' OER and Affordable Learning guides.
• Explore browser extensions like Unpaywall and Kopernio to help make search results more accessible.

Learning ought not be limited to the few scholarly publications that scholars can afford.  Check out open access materials in the online Library and beyond. . .