Open Access

Before I can try to talk to you about open access I needed to be certain about it myself. So I set about the World Wide Web in search of an explanation that I both understood and could translate into my own words. 

Along my search I started at the most obvious, Wikipedia, which told me open access was: “the practice of providing unrestricted access via the internet to peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles” and is also “increasingly being provided to theses, scholarly monographs and book chapters”. 

However, my search didn't stop at Wikipedia and although many other websites gave me similar definitions they all deepened my knowledge and understanding. 

So, in simple terms, open access is a free digital form of literature online to read, download, study, copy and expand on. Open access relates mainly to journals and academic texts but is rapidly growing and moving into more mainstream texts. 

A fun and simple video I found on YouTube will give you a quick and quirky basic understanding of open access: 

Whilst being fun and simple this video does go into depth about open access, what it is, where it came from and why it is needed. They said the two things that changed, and encouraged open access, were digitization and cost. As a digital culture student I will be focussing on the digitization however an interesting point I picked up on was that the cost of printing and distributing journals rose more than 250% above inflation. 

However, one thing I did find was the obvious divide between those for and against open access. 

This Guardian article looks into open access and an area they feel had been previously overlooked, how open access will affect the future of libraries and librarians: http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/oct/25/open-access-university-library-impact

When studying this issue SAGE held a ‘ round-table’ where many librarians and professionals were invited to discuss the future changes and challenges libraries and librarians may have to face and produced a report in which the article was based upon. In this report defining open access was listed as one of the challenges so librarians were faced with this problem that could potentially jeopardise their careers but they didn't even fully understand what that problem was!

Not only are librarians a topic of conversation but students as well, especially at a university level. Denying access to certain studies and papers not only hinders a student when they are trying to research but also hinders a lecturer when planning their teaching, they can only teach about what is available to them. This is another point made in the ‘Open Access Explained’ video where they also then compare different institutions of study where we see a knock on effect in less wealthy countries who don’t have the financial availability to buy access to these journals and their pupils who then cannot access the journals for their studies but also for further research.

Peter Suber, author of Open Access, gives us an explanation of why open access hasn't caught on quicker. He blames researchers and authors who are not willing to give their work away, whether it is for money or for status some people are just not happy with producing work for free. He says: “Authors who share their works in this way aren't selling them, and even authors with purposes higher than money depend on sales to make a living. Or at least they appreciate sales.” 

However, he does argue the case of open access by saying that authors who refuse to make their work free are narrowing their audience and therefore not only disabling their readers but also harming the possibility of further research. 

The book is available to read here: 

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Open_Access_(the_book)#

Within the ‘Open Access Explained’ video there is a statement that says “openness is clearly the future”, he also claims that as open access becomes the norm only the researchers willing to move along with it will succeed and anyone against the motion will be left behind. 

My opinion? Well I'm a student, I'm all for open access! I, like many others, have had experiences in the past where I have seen the dreaded ‘access denied’ message, or been greeted with a firewall asking me to pay more than I earn in a month to be able to read a paper that I don’t even know for certain will help me!

I have to admit initially I did have some hesitations as I felt for the researchers and authors who were being expected to produce their work for nothing, but after researching, and even speaking to my lecturer, I learnt that many researchers are paid for their research and it isn't the researchers or authors that receive the majority of the payment, it is the publishers. So I do agree with the majority, as well as the authors of the video, open access should be and hopefully will be the future.