Information wants to be free

It’s International Open Access Week! Not sure if you should be celebrating or not?

Have you ever been frustrated when a database article is not just a click away? Currently, scholars do research, write up articles, and give those articles to publishers. The publishers print the articles and provide online access in article databases. Publishers charge thousands of dollars for journal and database subscriptions, putting a hefty price tag on research results. Libraries pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide access to these articles, and no library can afford access to all of the research. As you might guess, the bigger a library’s budget is the more access it has to research results and articles. And if you don’t have access to a library, you often don’t have access to any of the articles.

Open access movements advocate for a more equitable, open sharing system where all people have equal and free access to information.

Want to learn more? Check out SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, or read this blog post, written by a scholar who started a mass protest against one publisher.