The LACUNY Scholarly Communications Roundtable has organized resources to support events at CUNY Libraries planned for Open Access Week (October 19 – 25) and throughout the month of October. The Roundtable decided that CUNY Libraries might want to use the whole month of October to raise awareness of Open Access on our campuses. This is a great time to spread the word about CUNY Academic Works (and to educate faculty on Authors’ Rights, Creative Commons, etc.)
A great resource for event-planning and keeping track of what’s happening on CUNY campuses is the OA / OER Toolkit compiled by members of the Roundtable. Check out the Calendar of CUNY Events, as well as ideas for events and publicity.
Back in November of 2011, the CUNY University Faculty Senate passed a Statement and Resolution on Open Access – a resolution which supported the establishment of a CUNY-wide open access institutional repository and which has been a guiding document in the development of that repository, from its collections policies to its mission and goals:
CUNY Academic Works is a service of the CUNY Libraries dedicated to collecting and providing access to the research, scholarship and creative work of the City University of New York. In service to CUNY’s mission as a public university, content in Academic Works is freely available to all.
CUNY Academic Works aims to:
Provide centralized, public access to the scholarly and creative output of the students, faculty, and staff of the City University of New York.
Promote research and collaboration within and between the twenty-four campuses that make up the City University of New York, as well as the larger public.
Preserve the history and development of the City University of New York.
While the mission and goals of Academic Works are clearly stated, it’s understandable that the first steps to meeting them can feel a little uncertain. Therefore, in order to support the Libraries as we embark on the trail to a more open CUNY, the Office of Library Services communicated three actionable goals for our first 18 months:
In 6 months, 50% of institutions will have at least one collection in the repository
In 12 months, 100% of institutions will have at least one collection in the repository
In 18 months, CUNY Academic Works will have 15,000 items representing diverse content types and disciplines
Sound familiar? OLS has been busy getting the word out about Academic Works since the kick-off this March, and, less than four months later, CUNY Libraries has met its first goal. In fact, we passed it. Thanks to the commitment and hard work of CUNY librarians, eighteen (count ’em, 18!) of twenty-four institutions have their first collections in the repository within four months. And these initial collections have us well on our way to meeting the 18 month goal; they include 2,500+ items spanning from traditional journal publications and monographs to data sets, student work, open educational resources, and archival collections that capture the history of the University.
CUNY enters the scholarly communication landscape at an exciting time. It’s a time that some find reminiscent of the wild west (and it certainly has its good, its bad, and its ugly), but it’s also a time in which CUNY has the opportunity to pioneer the way.
CUNY Libraries prepare to enter the wild west of academic publishing. Eighteen of the campus libraries are trained and ready to go, with more on the way soon!
This post originally appeared onWhat’s New @ OLS57, which provides CUNY Libraries with news and updates from the Systems group at the CUNY Office of Library Services.
Germany. India. England. France. Canada. Poland. Iran. Sweden. China. Turkey. Netherlands. Egypt. Russia. Japan. Those are just a few of the countries where researchers are downloading the works of Graduate Center students and faculty!
And now we can all watch what’s being downloaded where by visiting the repository’s animated download map (also visible on the bottom of the main GC Academic Works page)!
Map showing some of the downloads from Academic Works on March 11, 2015
Furthermore, anyone with one or more items in Academic Works receives monthly readership reports with information about how much their works have been accessed. It’s never been easier to track the popularity and impact of your work, or to reach audiences you otherwise wouldn’t have reached — largely through Google and Google Scholar searches.
Lots of East Coast downloads on March 11!
GC-affiliated faculty, want to improve the readership and impact of your work?Submit your scholarly and creative works — articles, book contributions, conference presentations, slideshows, posters, data sets, etc. Submitting is as simple as completing a form — see the step-by-step instructions.
Want to raise the profile of your program? Talk to your colleagues about uploading their works as well! Or invite Jill Cirasella, Associate Librarian for Public Services and Scholarly Communication, to a meeting to give an explanation and demonstration of Academic Works.
Want to improve the visibility of your center or institute? Contact Jill Cirasella to inquire about creating an Academic Works section for your center or institute!
A download in Seychelles!
(Graduate Center students, we’re doing a phased launch and are not accepting student works other than dissertations and theses quite yet. But stay tuned because we will in the near future!)
Email us at commonshelpsite@gmail.com so we can respond to your questions and requests. Please email from your CUNY email address if possible. Or visit our help site for more information:
