Willinsky – Alyssa Arbuckle

On “Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies, and the Future,” by Martin Paul Eve

July 27, 2017 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

In this thorough volume, Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies, and the Future, Martin Paul Eve introduces readers to open access as a concept and practice. Where Eve’s study differs from other major open access books, like Peter Suber’s Open Access, is in his specific focus on the humanities. Open access is often discussed in relation to the sciences only. This is for a few reasons, including that the earliest, largest-scale open access publishing movement started in physics; open…

On The Access Principle, by John Willinsky

August 22, 2016 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

In The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (2006), Dr. John Willinsky lays out an expansive argument for open access to scholarly research, based on a steadfast belief, articulated from the outset, that open access has the potential to change the public presence of science and scholarship, and increase the circulation of these particular forms of knowledge (xi). Willinsky concludes that knowledge is, inherently, a public good (like lighthouses [9]), and as such the public should…