Celebrating Open Access Week

The sun shines on St Andrews for the end of Open Access Week, as we prepare to welcome our keynote speaker Gary Hall, Professor of Media and Performing Arts at Coventry University, co-founder of Open Humanities Press and Series Editor, Living Books about Life to our main event:


The humanities and open access: opportunities and challenges

We have had great feedback and many interesting comments over the course of the week, from a student who believes open access means the quality of articles she reads will improve with increased visibility, to early career researchers who plan to publish only open access as a point of principle from now on.

Going forward, our Open Access Libguide will continue to evolve, and one of our priorities will be to update information on funder open access mandates on our web pages.

We will circulate a report on the week's activites and build on our experince for the coming year.

Today's suggested resource is the book "Open Access" by Peter Suber

Shedding light on open access

Open Access Week 2012 is well under way with events being held across the world and information, resources and opinion being widely shared. A series of blog posts from Creative Commons NZ sheds light on a number of areas, including:

• Open Access in the Book Disciplines (Sigi Jöttkandt, co-founder, Open Humanities Press) - While the move towards open access is often framed in terms of journal articles, Sigi considers “the growing need for viable open access dissemination options, particularly in Humanities disciplines, which are heavily reliant on the book form.”
• Open Access and the Role of Universities in Society(David Nichols, Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato)
• The Challenge for Scholarly Societies (Cameron Neylon, Advocacy Director, Public Library of Science) 

The first of these topics is very relevant to us in St Andrews, with our main event of the week focusing on the opportunities and challenges of open access in the humanities.

University of St Andrews Library Open Access Week event - still a few places left, see programme and booking details at: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/information/furtherhelp/researchsupport/researchoutputs/openaccess/OAweek/OAhumanities/

St Andrews sunrise 24 Oct 2012

Guide to open access policies

In advance of worldwide Open Access Week, the Harvard Open Access Project released version 1.0 of a guide to good practices for university open-access policies. The new guide has been compiled by OA and scholarly communication experts Peter Suber and Stuart Shieber and is designed to evolve as new experiences of good practice emerge.

As well as recommendations on drafting, adopting and implementing an OA policy, the guide is full of useful examples and practical suggestions, including strategeies for increasing 'green' open access through repository deposit > Filling the repository

Access the guide here: Good practices for university open-access policies

Open Access Week in St Andrews

A rather foggy start to Open Access Week in St Andrews (weatherwise), but we aim to use this week to clear any fogginess about open access! The Library has arranged a series of events to encourage all members of the University to find out how scholarly communication is changing.

Today we launch our new Open Access LibGuide - if you need a quick introduction or pointers to some OA resources, this is for you. You will also find links to the support that the Library can offer our authors, what's new in Research@StAndrews:FullText and some additional links.

The new guide is listed with all the Library's subject guides.

There will be information for visitors to the library about our repository, and about 'green' and 'gold' open access.

We will also have a drop-in session to answer informal queries, a workshop for academic staff, a Gradskills workshop and to round off the week on Friday 26th Oct our event Humanities and open access: opportunities and challenges is also open to external visitors.



Join the University of St Andrews Library to celebrate Open Access Week 2012!

St Andrews from West Sands 21 Oct 2012

Is open access the future of scholarly publishing?

Open access is bringing exciting changes to scholarly communication. It is currently a widely discussed and debated topic by government, institutions and publishers. Open Access Week provides an opportunity to come and find out why open access is important for you, your institution, your discipline, and everyone.

St Andrews University Library has organised a special event on Friday 26 Oct, 11.30-16.30:

The humanities and open access: opportunities and challenges in  Parliament Hall, South St, St Andrews

*Register (free) online*

Our invited speaker, Gary Hall, will explain why open access is important by focusing on a number of projects that creatively engage with open access research and publications:

This talk will explain why open access is important for the humanities, the University, indeed everyone. In will do so by focusing on a number of projects that creatively engage with open access research and publications, including Living Books about Life (www.livingbooksaboutlife.org), aJISC-funded series of over twenty open access books which provides a bridge between the humanities and the sciences. Produced by a globally-distributed network of writers and editors and open to ongoing collaborative processes with readers, these ‘living’ books repackage existing open access science research by clustering it around selected topics to form a series of coherent single-themed volumes - on air, bioethics, cosmetic surgery, extinction, human geonomics, pharmacology, veterinary science and so on. As the title of the project suggests, the theme that unites the volumes in the series is life, understood both biologically and philosophically.

Read more about Living Books about Life on @ the Library blog
All the books are available on our library catalogue

We will also hear about open access activities from academics in St Andrews, new journal hosting services in both St Andrews and Edinburgh University libraries, and more. While focusing on the humanities, this event will be relevant for anyone who needs to understand why open access is important.

Lunch and refreshments included - come and join us for a lively debate!

Major new open access journal publishes first articles

"eLife, the new open-access journal for outstanding scientific advancements, has published its first four research articles."

The new journal, backed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society, and the Wellcome Trust, is due to launch officially later this year. eLife aims to publish high quality papers 'without delay' and so has chosen to make its first open access articles available on PubMed Central and UKPMC. All articles and supplementary material in eLife will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence allowing unrestricted re-use of the content provided the original source and authors are credited.

The journal is promoted as a researcher-driven initiative and innovative platform, using digital media and open access to maximise its impact. Publishing in eLife is currently free of charge to authors, and its open access model ensures research results are available to all potential readers without barriers.

http://www.elifesciences.org/ "Publishing is just the beginning"

St Andrews events for Open Access Week 2012

Scholarly communication is changing!

Many research outputs are now published in open access (OA) journals, or deposited in open access repositories. Governments and funders support open access to publicly-funded research. New business models are emerging, and new opportunities are available to increase visibility of research.

Find out more about open access by joining us at one of our events to celebrate Open Access Week 2012, organised by the University of St Andrews Library.

Events for St Andrews staff and students:

Mon 22 Oct	Open Access LibGuide launch Visit the Library website and Main Library building to get yourself up to date and find out about open access resources
Tue 23 Oct	Open access 'coffee and cake' drop-in session (10:00-11:30) For support and admin staff - bring your questions to the Main Library, Level 2
Wed 24 Oct	Open access: publishing options, funder policies, support services and more (14:00-16:30) For St Andrews research staff - book CAPOD course online
Thu 25 Oct	Open access publishing: what is it? (15:00-16:30) For St Andrews postgraduates - book GRADskills course online

Event open to all:

The humanities and open access: opportunities and challenges

Friday 26 Oct, 11:00-16:30. Parliament Hall, South Street, St Andrews

Hear from St Andrews researchers and external speakers about some practical open access projects. While focusing on humanities, this event will be relevant for anyone who needs to understand why open access is important.

Main speaker: Gary Hall, Professor of Media and Performing Arts at Coventry University, co-founder of Open Humanities Press and Series Editor, Living Books about Life

More information and booking for this event.

Open Access Week "A global event, now in its 6th year, promoting Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research."