International Open Access Week at Criss Library

This year’s theme for International Open Access Week is a continuation from last year – Community over Commercialization. Open access supports open scholarship, collaboration, and conversations that serves the best interest of the public and academic community.

You may wonder what open access is and its purpose. Academic scholarship, research, and discovery is generally shared by the means of a published article. In the typical publishing cycle funders provide money and resources to researchers that conduct research, write an article, and submit the article to a publisher. The publisher assigns peer reviewers to review the article and make suggestions. The authors then revise the article and it is published – but the publisher charges readers and libraries to access that article. Even the original funders may have to pay to read the findings of the work they funded. Open access makes a fundamental change in the publishing process ensuring that the published article is free for readers, libraries, and who wants to read it.

This change allows research to be more widely distributed and cited. It allows students and researchers to access information without costs. Open access leads to collaboration. It supports the community that funded the research and holds an interest in its findings. It ultimately is community over commercialization.

Criss Library supports open access in multiple ways. One way we support open access is through DigitalCommons@UNO, our online, open access, digital institutional repository. DigitalCommons@UNO showcases the amazing research and creative work being done right here at UNO. It is free to access anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. In fact, DigitalCommons@UNO has had more than 6.4 million downloads since August 2011. DigitalCommons@UNO also hosts open access journals published here at UNO, such as the Journal of Religion and Film, International Dialogue, the Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning, and Leadership in Education, and Space and Defense. Visit the Open Access research guide that delves into all thing open access and provides many resources to authors to help retain their copyright and publish open access. The library also has open access publishing agreements that allow UNO corresponding authors to publish their work at reduced cost or no cost. Lastly, Criss Library hosts workshops and events throughout the year to educate people on open access, copyright and Creative Commons, and DigitalCommons@UNO.

Join us for International Open Access Week on October 25 at 12:30pm for a short, 30-minute virtual workshop about our open access publishing agreements and the basics of open access. For more information email Jennie Tobler-Gaston, Institutional Repository Coordinator.