Ask A Librarian

Open Access Week Promotes Free Distribution of Research

Posted by Monte Maxwell.
October 20th, 2014

As part of International Open Access Week, Oct. 20-26, the West Virginia University Libraries are promoting the benefits of Open Access publishing.

Open Access refers to free online access to digital full-text scientific and scholarly material, primarily research articles published in peer-reviewed journals.

Making work available in open access journals, or through the University’s Institutional Repository, increases citations of your work, promotes public access to federally funded research, and shares your work with scholars in developing nations who may not be able to afford high journal subscription fees.

The Libraries encourage the University community to learn more about Open Access and which journals offer reduced publication fees for WVU authors.

The Department of English is hosting an informal roundtable discussion Oct. 24, 1-3 p.m. in Colson Hall, 130. The panel will include scholars and librarians who work in open-access venues and on open-access issues. Discussions will cover how Open Access will change scholarly publishing and dissertations, tenure and promotion, and the nature of authorship itself, and how is open access being used at WVU. Attendees are invited to contribute. For more information, contact Sandy Baldwin, charles.baldwin@mail.wvu.edu, or Cheryl Ball, chball@mail.wvu.edu.

The American Library Association, in collaboration with CHOICE, a publishing unit of the Association of College and Research Libraries, is sponsoring a free webinar on Oct. 23 from 2-3 p.m. Registration is free.

More information about Open Access is available from SPARC®, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication.

For more information, contact Molly Dolan, digital initiatives and scholarly communications librarian, at molly.dolan@mail.wvu.edu.

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