Librarians Create Open Access

By Broadside Assistant News Editor Sonya Hudson

Free, easily accessible information is a powerful tool for students and faculty in a digital world. The Open Access Movement is a movement to enhance and improve the accessibility of knowledge throughout the world in a digital medium.

The Open Access Movement will officially be advertised on the internationally recognized Open Access Day on Oct. 14. The main objective of the day is to garner support for open access. Claudia Holland, the head of Copyright Resources Office, Shane Beers, Digital Repository Services Librarian, and Sarah Patton, University Dissertation and Thesis Coordinator, discussed the premise of open access.

“The purpose of open access is to archive information and have it freely available and accessible throughout time,” said Holland.

Open access should be brought to the attention of university communities because free information provides more research resources for students and faculty. Information is usually very expensive through databases and print journal.

Open access is important in making information available to everyone everywhere to increase one’s capacity to access information. said Holland, “information is power.” Having information online makes it more interactive since it can be shared, linked to and downloaded.

The purpose is to share scholarly research and information with as many people as possible.

“We, as librarians, have a liberal view of information and how it should be made freely available for the benefit of the public,” Holland said.

Beers explained that most information online, such as databases, are purchased and are not freely available to the larger community. Beers explained his role as a digital repository services librarian in conjunction with the Mason Archival Repository Service.

Beers manages repository and educates faculty and students on copyright agreements relating to the digital, open access community of MARS. “The fundamental goal is to keep information around and make it available for the larger community,” said Beers.

MARS is built on the structure that the information provided by Mason faculty, staff and students has research value to the larger community. When information is put online and easily accessible to anyone, it is much more powerful and useful to a larger population.

“The goal of institutional repository is to archive information and make it available through an open access environment,” said Beers.

Beers explained a misconception about databases. Some people think that because databases are available electronically, the information is free. However, databases are very expensive.

Holland explained that the open access movement is in partial response to current costs of information. The cost associated with journal publication is high. It costs a lot to publish and purchase information, like that packaged in databases, to make available to students and faculty.

“[The open access movement] is very important to everyone, particularly in an educational institution where we promote free exchange of ideas and information,” Holland said.
Beers explained the significant cost of databases to the institution, which trickles down to the tuition cost of students.

“In an ideal world, the more information that is freely available, the less the library has to spend on electronic materials that are packaged in databases,” said Holland. “So one could assume that would impact tuition in a positive way.”

Though lowering tuition costs is just wishful thinking, open access will provide students the opportunity to have their research available to a larger audience. Patton discussed the opportunities open access provides to graduate students working on their thesis or dissertation. One requirement of the final product of the dissertation process is to make the work publicly available.

“[Open access] provides wider dissemination,” said Patton, “in that it reaches a wider audience than those just on the shelf.” Students also have the opportunity to include more multimedia components to their research more easily and effectively when in a digital format.

Students receive instant gratification when finished with their research, as digital formatting is quicker than traditional publishing. Patton also acknowledged that students would most likely be cited more regularly when online.

Beers noted that the more research material available to students, the better their own research would be. Beers explained that MARS allows students to have their own work accessible online, when it probably would not be published on paper. Students are producing interesting, groundbreaking work that would benefit their own futures, furthering their opportunities through networking.

“One positive aspect of open access is to empower people to think more about their rights and the ownership of what they’re intellectually creating,” said Holland. Holland assures students and faculty that they are not required to give away all their rights through the copyright law.

Faculty can benefit from open access as well. The dissemination of information is also favorable in accordance with faculty. Faculty members’ work and research is available worldwide through open access. More people have easy access to the information, which inevitably leads to more citation of the information, which only looks favorably on the faculty member.

Information tables will be set up to give students and faculty more information about the program, the movement. Librarians will be available to answer questions and provide research assistance to anyone who needs it. “We’re here to help them in any way we can,” Holland said.\

For more information, visit freeculture.org, sparkawards.org or www.createchange.org.