Friday, October 31, 2008

Heather Morrison: Speaker Biography (Open Access and Scholarly Communications)

This is my open access Speaker's Biography (long version), developed for the Open Access Directory OA Speaker's Bureau.

Heather Morrison:
  • is a well-known, passionate advocate of open access and transformative change in scholarly communication
  • a PhD student at Simon Fraser University's School of Communication, and a librarian based in Vancouver, Canada.
  • 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.
  • librarian with extensive experience in licensing electronic resources in library consortial settings (many types and sizes of libraries), resource sharing, communications & strategic planning
  • co-planning a cross-Canada research study on open access support at Canadian university libraries and research offices
Speaking topics of interest:
  • 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
Potential workshops:
  • 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)
Heather loves public speaking and developing new presentations, and very much enjoys facilitating groups discussions too. Interested in online / distance presentations.

Aside from open access and scholarly communication, Heather speaks about library consortia and cooperation (particularly BC Electronic Library Network, where she works).