Join the Open Access Week 2024 Celebration at Penn Libraries
Penn Libraries is proud to participate in the worldwide celebrations for International Open Access Week, an initiative held annually to inspire global momentum toward the open sharing of knowledge to address important social issues, happening October 21-27. This year’s theme, “Community Over Commercialization,” continues the emphasis of Open Access Week 2023 with a call to action to prioritize approaches to open scholarship that serve the best interests of the public and the academic community.
What is "open access"?
A hallmark value of libraries since their earliest days has been to encourage the free and open circulation of knowledge, information, and ideas. But the ways that it is now possible to create and disseminate ideas — not just in the conventional form of printed books and journals, but in myriad ways on the internet — have grown increasingly complex and costly to consume. Journal articles, data, educational resources, and other published research outputs are commonly distributed by large conglomerate vendors like Elsevier, EBSCO, and ProQuest, whose subscription-based platforms make these outputs searchable, among other services valuable to research libraries. These vendors set their own prices and access conditions for their products. As a result, disparities in access to information have also grown, limited to those with the financial and infrastructural means to acquire access to these platforms.
Open access advocates seek to challenge this state of affairs, arguing that free access to information and unrestricted use of electronic resources for everyone is vital to open and equitable scholarship. A recent addition to those calling for open access are research funders, including federal agencies, which require that research they have funded be made freely accessible to the general public.
Why does it matter?
Choosing to share research outputs through open access means can have tangible benefits for both researchers and their audiences! Open access means that scholarship — including cutting-edge scientific experiments and impactful research studies — can quickly reach a wider audience who might not otherwise be able to afford to pay for expensive journal or database subscriptions. As a result,
- ideas can spread rapidly and stimulate new research, which in turn impacts real-world problem solving in the form of governmental policies, treatments for health problems, and economic investment in promising new technologies, to give just a few examples.
- Wider access can increase the likelihood of citation and recognition for good quality and impactful research.
- Knowledge gaps experienced globally by institutions and individuals with fewer material resources can be bridged.
- Duplication of research effort can be minimized, reducing waste of time and financial resources.
What's happening at Penn Libraries for OA Week 2024?
For Open Access Week 2024, Penn Libraries will host several workshops connected to open access and avenues for sharing your scholarship and research outputs. Don’t miss:
- October 22, 2pm: Manage Your Research Identity with ORCID
- October 23, 2pm: FAIR data in ScholarlyCommons
- October 24, 12pm: Publishing Reimagined
- October 24, 2pm: Preparing for Sharing: The Future of Research under the Nelson Memo
You can find other events being held worldwide on the International Open Access Week 2024 Events page.
How does Penn Libraries promote open access year-round?
Supporting information equity with open access is a strategic priority for Penn Libraries year-round.
While a majority of the digital resources available through the Libraries are facilitated through subscriptions to for-profit vendors, our investment in open access initiatives has increased in recent years. Penn Libraries’ financial investments in open access platforms like Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's bioRxiv and the Modern Language Association’s Knowledge Commons supports Penn affiliates seeking or sharing open scholarship, and membership agreements with a number of journals can help authors to reduce or eliminate fees (APCs, or author processing charges) sometimes associated with open access publishing.
In addition, Penn Libraries maintains its own open access institutional repository, Scholarly Commons, the University of Pennsylvania's open access institutional repository for gathering, indexing, storing, and making widely available the scholarly output of the Penn community.
The Penn Libraries provides multiple ways to increase your understanding of open access so that you can make the best decisions to support your needs - visit the resources available in our Open Access Guide to learn more.