Oct. 9, 2015
University Libraries is hosting three events in October to support International Open Access Week, Oct. 19 through 25. The events will explore Open Access (OA) policies at universities, the benefits of institutional repositories, and how new models of publishing scholarly research can affect university presses, as well as faculty and researchers in both the sciences and humanities.Open Access is free and barrier-free access to digital research literature that has been made possible by the Internet with the consent of the copyright-holder or author. The first event, "How Open Access Benefits Faculty and Research," is Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 11 a.m. in the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center, Great Room A.Keynote speakers Steven Lerman, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at The George Washington University, and Geneva Henry, university librarian and vice provost for libraries at George Washington, will share the experiences of universities that are using an Open Access policy.The second event, a presentation on "Institutional Repositories," is Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 4 p.m. in the John K. Mullen of Denver Memorial Library, May Gallery. Terry Owen, digital scholarship librarian, will discuss the impact of institutional repositories in preserving scholarly research and increasing the visibility and impact of research by faculty and student contributors. He will draw upon his experience as the coordinator of The Digital Repository at University of Maryland (DRUM).The final event, a panel discussion on "Scholarly Publishing and the Open Access Ecosystem," is Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 6:30 p.m. at Busboys and Poets. Rikk Mulligan, American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) public fellow and program officer for Scholarly Publishing, Association of Research Libraries, will provide opening remarks, followed by a conversation with three members of the CUA faculty, Trevor Lipscombe, James Greene, and Jennifer Paxton. The panel will discuss what scholarly authors and researchers need to know about Open Access.Kim Hoffman, coordinator of scholarly communications and subject librarian at CUA, says, "The Catholic University of America libraries, by planning these OA events, would like to engage faculty and graduate students in conversations about Open Access, the use of our new institutional repository, and the future of digital scholarly research."Peter Suber, director of both the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication and the Harvard Open Access Project, says, "The question is not whether scholarly literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating access barriers. Business models for paying bills depend on how OA is delivered."Suber adds that OA is practiced differently in many disciplines. Publishers are experimenting with new models in publishing. Gold OA includes Open Access journals or charging article processing fees for providing open access in subscription content. Green OA is a repository model.All of the events are open to the public. To request disability accommodations email Hoffman at hoffman@cua.edu one week prior to the event.