Open Access Week 2022 & Free Ebooks
October 24th to 30th is Open Access Week around the globe. What is Open Access? "Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers." — English Wikipedia. Why is OA important? Open access outputs drive not only scientific progress but also art and design by promoting the free spread of ideas and materials. Despite much research being publicly funded, it can become trapped behind the "paywalls" of for-profit companies. For instance, just this year the US Office of Science and Technology Policy issued guidance that research funded by taxpayers must be made freely available.
This year's OA Week theme is Climate Justice. "This year’s focus on Climate Justice seeks to encourage connection and collaboration among the climate movement and the international open community. Sharing knowledge is a human right, and tackling the climate crisis requires the rapid exchange of knowledge across geographic, economic, and disciplinary boundaries."
What can faculty do to promote Open Access?
- Publish in OA journals (the Libraries are happy to find possible journals for you!)
- Use OA or Open Educational Resources (OER) in your classes
- Contribute to the OA Faculty Research collection in VAULT
- Spread awareness of OA & the power dynamics of scholarly publishing—think of requesting an information literacy session on the topic!
Free Academic Ebooks
Speaking of OA resources, we'd like to highlight the thousands of free ebooks we have access to via the Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) site. Here are a handful of titles that stood out to us:
- Celebrity Bromances: Constructing, Interpreting and Utilising Personas
- Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli's Monster Princess
- Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism
- The Digital Imaginary: Literature and Cinema of the Database
These ebooks will show up in your regular searches from our home page.
