You put considerable time into producing research. Whether you’re writing your first undergraduate research paper, completing a dissertation, publishing a journal article, or developing a research dataset, your work represents an investment of time, effort, and expertise. But once that research is completed and shared, how do you ensure that others can find it, recognize Read More

You find an article that looks perfect for your research. The abstract addresses precisely the question you are exploring. You click to read more—and encounter a payment request. Before you can assess whether the article is useful, you have another problem to solve: getting access. As a research librarian and digital scholarship librarian, I think Read More

October 20-26, 2025 is International Open Access Week and a time to discuss Open Access (OA) to information. Scholarly publishing is largely still behind paywalls, but the open access movement has greatly expanded the amount of research that is freely available online for everyone to read, use, and re-use. Levels of Open Access There are Read More

Every two years, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) publishes in College & Research Libraries News an article on the top trends and issues affecting academic libraries and the change our institutions are experiencing. We will be highlighting some of these trends through a number of blog posts over the academic year, including: Read More

Happy International Open Access Week! This year Open Access Week is from October 21st through the 27th. Open Access Week was created by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) “to connect the global momentum toward the open sharing of knowledge with the advancement of policy changes and the importance of social issues affecting Read More

As part of Open Access Week, the libraries recommend that faculty and students set up their own ORCID ID. ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a global non-profit organization that provides persistent digital identifiers (similar to a permalink) for researchers to use in identifying themselves. It is used to distinguish researchers and connect a Read More

Happy Open Access Week! International Open Access Week (October 23-29, 2023) was created by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)  to highlight the benefits of Open Access (OA), share information on OA, and inspire wider participation in OA by the academic and research community. This year’s theme for Open Access Week is Community Read More

Open Educational Resources (OER) are free or openly accessible materials such as textbooks, lesson plans, videos, and even full courses. With OER, students will have immediate access to course materials and will be able to reference them after the course is over. Without going through the traditional publishing process, materials can be updated more quickly Read More

In the past few years the term “Open Access” (OA) has gained attention in the worlds of higher education, research, and publishing. With this rise in attention has come a rise in misconceptions surrounding OA. OA is incredibly multifaceted and to truly get a grasp on it, it is best to understand the basics before Read More

Open Access Week is October 24 – 30, 2022. Open Access “is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access ensures that anyone can access and use these results—to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives.” (SPARC*). What Read More