Friday, May 02, 2008

Open Access: to research, or to implement

Peter Suber, in the May 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter, presents an extensive list of questions, highly recommended for anyone interested in research open access!

Librarians - here is another perspective. All we need to do is to rethink, just a little, what a library collection is in an open access age. The moment we understand that a library can build a collection, and that the concept of purchase need never enter the equation, then we can begin to shift those collection dollars from purchase to creating open access, working creatively and cooperatively in partnership with our faculty and scholarly publishers.

This shift - which is already happening, with so many libraries involved in digitizing collections for open access, publishing, institutional repositories, and the SCOAP3 Consortium - would change the answers to many of the fine questions Peter asks; indeed, it would make many of these questions moot!