Friday, November 7, 2014

American Libraries Live: Open Access

On Thursday, November 6th I participated in a live Google hangout put together by American Libraries Magazine on open access publishing and libraries with Emily Puckett Rodgers from the University of Michigan and Melanie Schlosser at The Ohio State University Libraries. Here's a program description.
Scholarly journals are increasingly becoming digital, experimenting with new publishing models such as Open Access (OA) and incorporating multimedia into their formats. In addition, the process of research continues to evolve because of mandates from funding agencies to publicly share research findings and data. For a candid discussion of what OA is (and isn’t), join us for “Open Access and Libraries,” the next broadcast of American Libraries Live. (Source)
The gist of what I said:

  • I like the Budapest Initiative definition of open access, "unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly research," but would add that in order for something to be open, it must be found. "Discoverability" should be a concern here. 
  • There was a question about "corruptability," shady practices involving author's fees and the like, and while those issues exist around lesser OA journals, those same issues are present in lesser paywalled journals as well. I don't think there is an "OA problem" as much as there is a "peer review problem." 
  • While open access is seen as more of an issue for academic libraries, people use public libraries for research as well, and many public library systems don't subscribe to packages of peer-reviewed journals and articles. OA is a tremendous help here. Also, people use public libraries to reskill and open educational resources (OERs), be they Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) or open textbooks, are no-cost solutions, provided public librarians are aware of these resources. 
  • Regarding educating people on open access, I again discussed how zoos and aquariums transitioned from being places to see animals to having conservation and environmental awareness embedded into their institutional fabrics. I want to see libraries do the same thing. At my place of work open access is one of the first things you see on the website, and we've worked with faculty to bring OERs into the classroom, replacing more expensive textbooks. We can, and will, do more. 

Puckett Rodgers and Schlosser had very smart, important things to say as well, and not just about what I discussed above. Below we talk about promoting resources, federal policies, integrating OA into traditional library work flows, discoverability, and more.



My caption contest submission: "The Infinity Gauntlet will be mine!"Also, about two-thirds of the way through the hangout I made a joke about not apologizing for cross-posting on listservs. See if you can find it.

There was a lively discussion on twitter using the hashtag "allive," which I've Storified. Enjoy.

Elsewhere on this site:
More Thoughts on Discovery, Plus a Poster
From Here to Discovery
Open Access: A World Without Vendors
The Price of Scholarly Materials, Politics, and Access
Another World is Possible: Particle Physics Goes Open Access
The Library as Aquarium, or The SOPA Post
There's more under the open access tag.

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