By Justine Cotton, Liaison Librarian

While prestigious academic presses and journals constitute the gold-standard in academic publishing, various trends in the digital environment are transforming the creation and delivery of scholarly research. As a result, open access has emerged as a growing movement to provide and share scholarly information, free-of-charge to readers via the internet. Open access is compatible with many of the features of conventional scholarly literature, including peer review, quality, prestige and copyright. The number of highly ranked, openly accessible scholarly publications is steadily increasing.

“Libraries are very interested in the open access model as a means of increasing access to information,” said Margaret Grove, University Librarian.

Open access is beneficial to researchers, she said. “By making information freely available to others around the world, scholars can reach a wider audience and increase the impact of their research.” Indeed, analysis has shown that articles published in open access formats are more likely to be cited than articles behind subscription barriers.

From Oct. 18 to 24, the Brock community will join the worldwide academic and research community in celebrating Open Access Week, an opportunity to raise awareness of the principle of open access. Also in October, the James A. Gibson Library, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, and the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences will launch the E-Thesis Pilot Project, an open access initiative that will see graduate students in Applied Health Sciences submitting their theses in digital format to Brock’s Digital Repository.

We invite you to attend our events during Open Access Week and learn more about the benefits and issues of open access. Please visit brocku.ca/library/about-us-lib/openaccess for more information or contact Barbara McDonald, Associate University Librarian (Collections and Liaison).