WVU Libraries

In celebration of the first international Open Access Day, the WVU Libraries will host a live, worldwide broadcast at 7 p.m. Oct. 14 in the computer classroom at the Health Sciences Library.

The presentation will feature an appearance from Sir Richard Roberts, PhD, FRS, who was the joint winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering split genes and RNA splicing. Currently working at New England Biolabs, he was one of 26 Nobel Prize winners to sign the Open Letter to the U.S. Congress in support of taxpayer access to publicly funded research.

The event will also mark the launch of the new “Voices of Open Access Video Series.” Key members of the research community, including a teacher, librarian, researcher, student, patient advocate, and a funder, will speak on why they are committed to Open Access.

Open Access is the principle that publicly funded research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it is gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it. Recent mandates by funders, including that of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (the world’s largest research funder), which now requires that all their funded research be placed in an openly accessible database, have further strengthened the prospects for Open Access to all research.

The WVU Libraries have an Open Access webpage at www.libraries.wvu.edu/open-access with information about Open Access publishers available to WVU faculty with reduced fees, and recordings of previous presentations at WVU about open access. For more information, contact Susan Arnold at susan.arnold@mail.wvu.edu, or John Hagen at john.hagen@mail.wvu.edu.