Heather Morrison:
- is a well-known, passionate advocate of open access and transformative change in scholarly communication
- the author of Scholarly Communications for Librarians Chandos Publishing in March 2009.
- a PhD student at Simon Fraser University's School of Communication, and a librarian based in Vancouver, Canada.
- presents and publishes extensively on open access and scholarly communication; most of her works can be found in the SFU Institutional Repository and E-LIS. Recent major presentations include a keynote at the 2010 LIBER conference, The role of the research library in an emerging global public sphere, and a spotlight at the 2010 OCULA conference, Freedom for Scholarship in the Internet Age.
- Heather served on the organizing committees for ELPUB 2009 and the Second International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference, and on the E-LIS Governance Team. Heather has developed and taught courses on Open Access and Issues in Scholarly Communication and Publishing at the University of British Columbia's School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, and also co-taught Information Policy
- is co-chair of the CUFTS Free! Open Access Collections Group, and participates in the ALPS LINK team which coordinates sharing of learning objects by British Columbia librarians.
- has worked with the British Columbia Library Association and the Canadian Library Association, on open access advocacy, drafting Resolutions on Open Access passed by BCLA in 2004 and CLA in 2005, responses to open access policy consultations, and served as the Co-Convenor of the CLA Task Force on Open Access (2006-2008), which drafted strong policies on open access to CLA's own publications and a Position Statement on Open Access for Canadian Libraries, both endorsed by CLA, and formed an Open Access Interest Group to carry forward the work of the Open Access Task Force.
- currently serves as Managing Editor of Stream, the SFU School of Communication graduate student journal, and was the first Editor, Theory / Research of the open access journal, Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research
- author of the scholarly blog, The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics. A substantial portion of posts are on open access and/or scholarly communications. Major series include The Dramatic Growth of Open Access, a quarterly series available in open data and commentary form, which attempts to explore the growth of open access in numeric terms, and Transitioning to Open Access, which presents and comments on models and potential models for transitioning from purchase / subscriptions to open access.
- founder of the OA Librarian blog
- open access consultant to Chemists Without Borders, and drafted the Open Chemistry Position Statement.
- librarian with extensive experience in licensing electronic resources in library consortial settings (many types and sizes of libraries), resource sharing, communications & strategic planning
- an active contributor to the Open Access Directory
- co-planning a cross-Canada research study on open access support at Canadian university libraries and research offices
- open access overview, especially policy, advocacy, and growth / status
- open access transitional strategies, for librarians, publishers, and/or scholars (economics, scholarly publishing and archiving)
- transformative potential of open access for society
- philosophical issues in open access and scholarly communications
- E-LIS
- open access overview (policy, archives, publishing) (based on open access class - weekend)
- scholarly communications (group exercise to create a practice journal, from writing and peer review to editing to publishing) (based on scholarly communications class)
Aside from open access and scholarly communication, Heather speaks about library consortia and cooperation (particularly BC Electronic Library Network, where she works).
