Alyssa Arbuckle

On “ACRL Policy Statement on Open Access to Scholarship by Academic Librarians” and “IFLA Statement on Open Access – Clarifying IFLA’s Position and Strategy”

January 25, 2017 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

Both the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) have public position statements on open access. IIFLA released “IFLA Statement on Open Access – Clarifying IFLA’s Position and Strategy” in April 2011, and ACRL released “ACRL Policy Statement on Open Access to Scholarship by Academic Librarians” five years later, in June 2016. Both documents provide an official statement on open access, although IFLA takes a much stronger position in regards…

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On “International Policy and Practice on Open Access for Monographs,” by Josephine Asmah

January 25, 2017 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

Josephine Asmah prepared “International Policy and Practice on Open Access for Monographs” as a report to the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences regarding the state of open access policy and practice in regards to monographs, internationally. This is a unique focus, as most academic and policy-driven conversations about open access concern journals or data, at least in Canada. Journals have been prioritized over monographs in this context for a few different reasons: Time: monographs have a longer publication…

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On “Comprehensive Brief to Open Access to Publications and Research Data for the Federal Granting Agencies,” by Kathleen Shearer

January 22, 2017 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

In this 2011 document, “Comprehensive Brief to Open Access to Publications and Research Data for the Federal Granting Agencies,” Kathleen Shearer reviews the research dissemination landscape in Canada, especially within the context of open access. She divides her report into two sections: publications and data. Although the general premise behind open access and open data is the same (that is, free and universal access to research materials), the implementation considerations are actually rather different. There remain challenges to Canadian researchers’…

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On “Require Open Access to Results of Research Funded by Canadian Taxpayer” by Heather Morrison et al.

January 22, 2017 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

The “Require Open Access to Results of Research Funded by Canadian Taxpayer” report was developed by Heather Morrison, Leslie Chan, Michael Geist, Stevan Harnad, and Christian Vandendorpe, among others, for the Government of Canada. It preempts the “Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications” by ~5 years, although it is a clear precedent of that policy. Morrison et al. make direct recommendations in “Require Open Access”: primarily, they suggest that all funded research should be required to be deposited in institutional…

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On the Government of Canada’s “Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications”

January 13, 2017 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

Governments around the world are developing policies to encourage or ensure open access to the research they fund. These policies vary in scope and implementability, but all of them take the line that publically funded research should be publically available. The “Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications” lays out the Government of Canada’s approach and attitude toward research sharing and dissemination, funneled through the Tri-Agency. The goal of this document is to convince researchers to make their output openly available,…

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On “Capitalizing on Big Data: Toward a Policy Framework for Advancing Digital Scholarship in Canada”

January 5, 2017 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

“Capitalizing on Big Data: Toward a Policy Framework for Advancing Digital Scholarship in Canada” is a consultation document that was compiled by the Government of Canada (namely the Tri-Council and CFI, in collaboration with Genome Canada) and released in October 2013. The primary aim of this document is to argue that funding policies for digital scholarship and infrastructure in Canada need to be coordinated. The document’s compilers contend that Canada does not have sufficient infrastructure to manage the increasing load…

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On “Optimizing Open Access Policy,” by Stevan Harnad

January 4, 2017 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

Stevan Harnad, in the article “Optimizing Open Access Policy,” makes the case for universal open access by route of mandated Green Open Access (OA), that is, of universities and funding agencies requiring that all researchers submit their work to institutional repositories. He argues that the current state of Gold OA is still not a sustainable option for universities, as they are now paying article processing charges (APCs) for authors as well as maintaining their subscriptions to journals. This system has…

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On “Introduction to Open Access” and “Open Access Infrastructure”

November 29, 2016 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

As with the Open Access for Researchers UNESCO curriculum,Open Access for Library Schools was developed under UNESCO’s Open Access Program. On their website UNESCO writes, “The carefully designed and developed sets of OA curricula for researchers and library and information professionals are based on two needs assessment surveys, and several rounds of face-to-face and online consultations with relevant stakeholders” (n.p.). I’ve read over a couple of the modules that appear to be most pertinent for my research, and will offer…

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On “A Good Idea, a Difficult Reality: Toward a Publisher/Library Open Access Partnership,” by Rowland Lorimer

November 18, 2016 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

The title of this article by Rowland Lorimer, “A Good Idea, a Difficult Reality: Toward a Publisher/Library Open Access Partnership,” may be a bit misleading. When one reads through the article itself, it seems to argue that libraries should not have a substantive role to play in OA, or at least in the publishing side of OA. (Is that a partnership?) Lorimer rightly acknowledges the complexities of scholarly communication, and the need for objective study into successful models. But its…

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On “‘Free to All’: Library Publishing and the Challenge of Open Access,” by Michah Vandegrift and Josh Bolick

November 17, 2016 Alyssa Comments 0 Comment

In the published conference paper “‘Free to All’: Library Publishing and the Challenge of Open Access,” Micah Vandegrift and Josh Bolick argue that libraries need to be unwavering forces in the promotion and implementation of open access (OA) publishing. They contend that libraries are increasingly becoming “library publishers” (107). Although I do think there’s an argument to be made to this end, it is not overwhemingly clear to me, from the paper itself, just how libraries are publishers. My immediate…

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