Librarians as agents for social change, community development

and democracy

An Open Access Perspective

Ina Smith Open Scholarship Manager

Stellenbosch University 4 June 2014

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001929/192971e.pdf

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What is Open Access?

http://www.growingyourbaby.com/2013/09/05/new-global-index-exposes-gaps-in-health-care-between-rich-and-poor/

What is Open Access?

“By Open Access, we mean the free, immediate, availability on the public Internet of those works which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment – permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software or use them for any other lawful purpose.” Source: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa

OA as used by public

Educators and students around the world contribute to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects for class

assignments

SUNScholar – Impact – Example

Research Article, Dept. of Animal Sciences (2013) – hot topic A high incidence of species substitution and mislabelling detected in meat products sold in South Africa/Cawthorn, Donna-Maree Steinman, Harris A. Hoffman, Louwrens C. Subscription article (Elsevier): Cawthorn, D-M., Steinman, H.A., & Hoffman, L.C. 2013. A high incidence of species substitution and mislabelling detected in meat products sold in South Africa. Food Control, 32(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2013.01.008.

Open Access Copy Downloads (27 February 2013 - )

12 November 2013 984

13 May 2014 1 534

SUNScholar – Impact – Example (cont.):

Sparked dialogue (also on social media), investigations, additional reviews of article ….. We want to encourage dialogue and have results scrutinised – along scientific principles.

SUNJournals – Impact – Examples:

Two highly specialised journals:

South African Journal of Libraries and Information Sciences

Scientia Militaria

Since SAJLIS has gone OA & online …

• Increase in usage & visibility (also international)

• Increase in submission of papers

• Reduced costs – minimal expenses (profit)

• Retrospective issues also to be published online – digitisation process

• Next: Thomson Reuters Impact Factor

SAJLIS Statistics

• Top downloaded article: Personal knowledge

management: the foundation of organisational knowledge management/P Jain, Vol 77, No 1 (2011)

1 315 downloads • 107 articles (2002 (vol. 68) – 2013 (vol. 79))

• 26 887 downloads in total

• 266 users enrolled

Scientia Militaria – top downloaded article

Vol. 20 no. 2 (1990) Downloads: 4 681

DOI (Usage tracked via Crossref)

Article Metrics Finding References

Social Media

Scientia Militaria – Finding References

Educational Institutions

• Contributes to core mission of advancing knowledge • Democratizes access across all institutions – regardless of

size or budget • Provides previously unattainable access to community

colleges, universities and schools • Provides access to crucial STEM materials • Increases competitiveness of academic institutions • Students • Enriches the quality of their education • Ensures access to all that students need to know, rather

what they (or their school) can afford • Contributes to a better-educated workforce

Source: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa

Businesses

• Access to cutting-edge research encourages innovation

• Stimulates new ideas, new services, new products

• Creates new opportunities for job creation

Source: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa

Public

• Provides access to previously unavailable materials relating to health, energy, environment, and other areas of broad interest

• Creates better educated populace

• Encourages support of scientific enterprise and engagement in citizen science

Source: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa

What can public (incl. school) libraries do?

• Open Access Week 20-26 October 2014 http://www.openaccessweek.org/

• Partner with an academic library

• Support and develop OERs in collaboration with school libraries

• Find existing projects on the WWW

• Create an awareness amongst patrons – use of Open Access resources (dictionaries, encyclopedias etc)

• Open textbooks in schools

• Use and support Open Source! OpenOffice, Ubuntu

Let’s work towards a better and equal future and life for all!

http://www.educationnews.org/international-uk/private-school-enrollments-growing-in-south-africa-as-poor-enroll/