This session will deepen your understanding of Open Access by providing a set of specific case studies. We will discuss three major areas of work: supporting OA through licensing agreements and policies, empowering scholars with new literacies, and supporting access and discovery through repositories. Each area will be grounded in the work of specific institutions which run the gamut from large public R1s to smaller regional institutions. We will also invite you to share case studies from your own institution and those that inspire you. We hope you will leave with a clearer sense of what Open Access looks like on the ground and a set of compelling models for doing the work at a diverse set of institutions, including your own.
Open Access (OA) has emerged as a significant area of academic library work across the higher ed landscape, impacting nearly everyone in the profession. It affects management at all levels, outreach, collection development, technical services, and public services operations, as well as dedicated scholarly communication staff. Open Access is evolving so quickly that getting and maintaining a hand-hold can be challenging—particularly for folks who are gaining responsibilities related to OA for the first time.
To address this, SPARC is collaborating with the the team behind the Scholarly Communication Notebook (Josh Bolick, Maria Bonn, and Will Cross) to host a three-part series meant to provide an entry point to OA work in libraries as well as a refresher for those already doing this work. In the first session, we’ll cover foundational principles like definitions and development of OA. In the second, we’ll examine a few case studies to see how a variety of institutions implement OA services and support. Finally, we’ll dig into some of the trickier issues that have recently emerged in this contested space. No prior knowledge or experience is necessary, and all are welcome.
These sessions are open to anyone working in libraries, and participants can register for just those sessions that are of interest. SPARC membership is NOT required, and our goal in this series is to support the wider community, particularly those at institutions with fewer resources to support OA-related work.
Recordings of each session will be made available afterward. This series is a pilot, and based on feedback from the community, SPARC may explore further work in this area.