Open Praxis, Open Access: Digital Scholarship in Action is a 2020 collection edited by Darren Chase and Dana Haugh. Primarily, it draws together chapters that reflect librarian considerations of open scholarship. In what follows I summarize a handful of chapters from this collection.

In “An Overview of the Open Access Movement in Canada,” Rosarie Coughlan and Mark Swartz do as their chapter title promises: they provide an overarching look at the state of open access in Canada. The authors suggest that there has been good momentum so far—citing the Tri-Agency Policy on Open Access to Publications, Canada’s participation in the Open Government Partnership, the Canadian Scholarly Publishing Working Group, and the Copyright Law review—but that Canada still has some ways to go before the country becomes a leading force in the open access world. Coughlan and Swartz recommend that Canada take further concrete steps, including transforming the Tri-Agency Policy on OA to law, and doing away with Crown Copyright, in order to more fully support and facilitate open scholarship nationwide.

In “The Emperor’s New Clothes: Open Access and Intersectionality,” Laura Francabandera questions whether the Open Access movement is truly an arbiter of social justice as has been claimed. Francabandera suggests that by taking an intersectional approach to assessing open access, one can see that the movement has far to go when it comes to equity. Francabandera bases this suggestion primarily on a study of the representation of Black women within open access research. Additional avenues beside topic representation could be considered within this framework, too; namely, who holds the most power in scholarly publishing, and what is their commitment to equity and diversity? Where are Black voices participating in and shaping academic publishing conversations, and where are these voices being muted or ignored? Where has open access publishing perpetuated hegemonic norms?

In “The Concept of Openness in Scholarship,” Victoria Martin provides a foundational look at what open scholarship is, with a distinct focus on open access. She suggests that although openness in scholarship can be difficult to define, it can be perceived in several different ways: as transparency, scientific norm, ethical obligation, freedom of inquiry, mindset, author’s right, user’s right, freedom from cost, or technological advance. Overall, Martin argues, open access is at a transformational stage and libraries are well positioned to advance and facilitate further openness in scholarship.

In “Challenging Library Support of Article Processing Charges,” Heidi Zuniga and Lilian Hoffecker push back against the notion that libraries should have open access funds that consist of provision for Article Processing Charges (APCs). Zuniga and Hoffecker do not offer an opinion on the relative value of the APC, nor do they outline the ways in which APCs cause further disparity in the academic world. Rather, the authors argue that these funds are time consuming and difficult to manage, and that it does not behoove the library to provide support for individual author publishing now when it never has before (e.g. for colour printing or image licensing, for which there have been author fees in the past).

 

Works cited

Chase, Darren, and Dana Haugh. 2020. Open Praxis, Open Access: Digital Scholarship in Action. Chicago: American Library Association.

Coughlan, Rosarie, and Mark Swartz. 2020. “An Overview of the Open Access Movement in Canada.” In Open Praxis, Open Access: Digital Scholarship in Action, edited by Darren Chase and Dana Haugh, 19–40. Chicago: American Library Association.

Francabandera, Laura. 2020. “The Emperor’s New Clothes: Open Access and Intersectionality.” In Open Praxis, Open Access: Digital Scholarship in Action, edited by Darren Chase and Dana Haugh, 57–68. Chicago: American Library Association.

Martin, Victoria. 2020. “The Concept of Openness in Scholarship.” In Open Praxis, Open Access: Digital Scholarship in Action, edited by Darren Chase and Dana Haugh, 3–18. Chicago: American Library Association.

Zuniga, Heidi, and Lilian Hoffecker. 2020. “Challenging Library Support of Article Processing Charges.” In Open Praxis, Open Access: Digital Scholarship in Action, edited by Darren Chase and Dana Haugh, 93–108. Chicago: American Library Association.