The University Committee for the Library (UCL) has been engaging in discussions about Open Access publishing. Open access as defined by the Bethesda Statement is a publication model based on free and unrestricted access to scholarly research output that is archived in at least one online repository supported by an academic, scholarly, or government agency.
The traditional model of scholarly publication relies on publishers to facilitate the process of selection, peer review, editing, and dissemination. Libraries, in turn, purchase and provide access to these published books and journals. Open Access is an alternative publishing model that retains the selection, peer review, editing and dissemination, but makes the published work available for free to all users from the point of publication. The costs of publishing are borne not by the readers but by the authors themselves, government grants, universities, and other agencies. For more information on Open Access please visit:
Open Access information:
The University Committee for the Library has been engaging in discussions about Open Access publishing with the ultimate goal of improving dissemination and access to knowledge. Recently, faculty were surveyed about their thoughts on Open Access. We would like to share the results of that survey with the faculty as well as provide updates on steps the Library is taking to facilitate Open Access publishing.
Please send any questions or comments to the UCL Chair, Dr. David Ferguson.