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Open Access Week Thought of the Day #2

Today’s open access thought is visual rather than verbal:

What’s that map telling us?  It’s showing us all the countries where open access articles have been downloaded from MIT’s open access repository.  The redder the country, the more articles that have been downloaded.  The reddest countries aren’t surprising: United States, China, India, Germany, and the UK.  But take a look at all of the orange and yellow countries: Australia, Brazil, Poland, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, etc., etc., etc.

That’s some serious global reach.

Who thinks people from all these countries would have found and read these articles if they hadn’t been open access?

Yeah, me neither.

Want to learn more about how MIT’s repository helps people worldwide?  Read  Worldwide Impact of Open Access to MIT Faculty Research.

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Open Access Week Thought of the Day #1

It’s Day 1 of Open Access Week, and here’s a thought from Mike Taylor (of the Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week blog) to kick off the week:

If you can make money by publishing research, that’s great.

The issue is not publishers who make money. The issue is corporations that go by the title “publishers”, but which in fact make money by preventing publication.

Because “publish” means “make public”. The whole point of a publisher is to make things public. The reason the scientists of 30 years ago sent their papers to a publisher was because having a publisher print them on paper and ship them around the world was the most effective way to make them public. And subscriptions were the obvious way to pay for that work. But now that anything can be made public instantly — “Publishing is not a job any more, it’s a button” — giving papers to a “publisher” that locks them behind a [paywall] is the opposite of publishing. It’s privating.

Read more: http://svpow.com/2012/10/16/publish-means-make-public-paywalls-are-the-opposite-of-publishing/

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Open Access Workshop @ LaGuardia Community College on 10/23

Open Access: Good Citizenship in the Information Age

The Library will participate in OA Week by offering this workshop to the College community. We will discuss open access, defining it and explaining how it impacts the work of faculty and the learning environment of students. It will also show participants how to find open access content, like articles and textbooks, and how to determine to what extent their work can be shared with a broader audience.

Presented by Ann Matsuuchi, Steven Ovadia, Alexandra Rojas and Catherine Stern

WHEN: Tuesday, October 23 12:00-1:00 p.m.
WHERE: LaGuardia Community College Library, Conference Room-E-101

Contacts:
Ann Matsuuchi, amatsuuchi@lagcc.cuny.edu; Steven Ovadia, sovadia@lagcc.cuny.edu; Alexandra Rojas, arojas@lagcc.cuny.edu; Catherine Stern, castern@lagcc.cuny.edu