Open access resources
From PLN
Open access resources
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- by Walt Crawford, first published July 15, 2008
The literature of open access is rich and complex. This page is not an OA bibliography or webliography, but it includes pointers to one or two of them.
This is an annotated set of first-level pointers--resources that provide rich, varied sets of facts and commentary on their own and, in some cases, include pointers to other resources and source documents.
Starting out
PLN's own Open access cluster may be your best place to start, beginning with Open access basics and continuing from there.
Key sources
These are the cornerstone sources--some old, one quite new. You'll want to go further, particularly to consider some of the internal issues and controversies regarding OA, and you may find one or two of these overwhelming. But if you can follow all of these, you'll be extremely well-informed about open access.
SPARC Open Access Newsletter
SOAN, written by Peter Suber, is the key monthly publication on open access. The link is to the archive. Monthly issues are distributed by email; subscription and unsubscription details are on the website. SOAN consistently appears on the second of each month, beginning with July 2003.
The archive also includes the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter, which preceded SOAN and dates back to 2001. This earlier publication was weekly and appeared from March 2001 through September 2002. The first issue of SOAN explains the change and how Suber has been able to devote so much time and attention to OA.
SOAN is published and sponsored by ARL's Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). Note also SPARC's site for SOAN and the related SPARC Open Access Forum.
SOAN issues typically begin with one or more major essays and continue with a set of briefly-annotated links to "what happened, or what I noticed, since the last issue of the newsletter, emphasizing action and policy over scholarship and opinion." Coming events and housekeeping items round out each issue. Most links are to coverage in Suber's blog, Open access news (see below). For example, the June 2008 SOAN begins with an essay on "'Open access and the self-correction of knowledge" that takes up the first six or seven pages of a 20-page issue.
SOAN comes first because it's manageable (once a month, rarely more than 25 pages), because the lead essays provide a practical and philosophical understanding of open access, and because Suber, while believing wholeheartedly in the worth of OA, is fair, honest and an excellent writer.
Open Access news
OAN is a blog, also by Peter Suber (and Gavin Baker), covering a broad range of OA-related events and discussions.
Warning: OAN is prolific. You're likely to see anywhere from five to twenty posts each day. Archives are arranged by week, and a single week's worth of posts may be 40 to 50 or more print page equivalents.
Here's what Suber says about the scope of OAN since September 2007:
- For the first five years or so of this blog's life, I aimed to be comprehensive. But as the volume of OA-related news increased, I had to abandon that goal. Now the blog is frankly selective.
- At first I responded to the problem of growing volume by narrowing my scope. I aimed to be comprehensive on the topic of OA but I dropped related topics (copyright, peer review, academic freedom, electronic publishing...) unless some new development or article on one of these related topics had a strong OA connection. That worked for a while. But in mid-2007 it became clear that even the narrow band of hard-core OA news was too large for one person to cover comprehensively.
- I still try, within the limits of my time, to cover all the primary developments and omit only the secondary. But I acknowledge that I have to draw this distinction, just as I acknowledge that I use my own criteria. I give preference to developments that have a strong OA connection, that are new, and that are described in English. As long as I'm writing all this out, I should also acknowledge that the boundary between primary and secondary shifts day by day, in small ways, according to the day's volume of news and the rest of my workload.
- I keep reminding myself that the unmanageably large and growing volume of OA-related news is a sign of success.
Open Access Directory
A recent and growing wiki, hosted by Simmons GSLIS. From the home page:
- The Open Access Directory (OAD) is a compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA) to science and scholarship, maintained by the OA community at large. By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD will make it easier for everyone to discover them and use them for reference. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about OA.
While OAD will continue to grow, it's already a key resource, both for lists and pages supporting those lists. You'll find publisher policies for NIH-funded authors, institutions that support open access, statements by learned societies and much more--including a directory of other wikis related to OA (more than three dozen in mid-July 2008).
Open Access Bibliography
By Charles W. Bailey, Jr. From the home page:
- The Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals (ISBN 1-59407-670-7) provides an overview of open access concepts, and it presents over 1,300 selected English-language books, conference papers (including some digital video presentations), debates, editorials, e-prints, journal and magazine articles, news articles, technical reports, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding the open access movement's efforts to provide free access to and unfettered use of scholarly literature. Most sources have been published between 1999 and August 31, 2004; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1999 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available on the Internet (approximately 78 percent of the bibliography's references have such links).
Bailey has contributed the Open Access Bibliography to the Open Access Directory for community updating. The original document continues to be available in searchable HTML, free PDF, or ARL-published book form.
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography
Also by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., including a broader range of topics. The bibliography is supported by Scholarly electronic publishing weblog, a monthly list of new items.
Directory of Open Access Journals
Maintained by Lund University Libraries, this directory "covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. We aim to cover all subjects and languages." In the colorful language of OA, DOAJ covers gold OA.
As of mid-July 2008, the directory includes 3,492 journals, 1,186 of which can be searched at article level directly from DOAJ--including more than 190,000 articles.
If you're trying to make sense of DOAJ or get a sense of scope for this portion of open access, one good way to start is to expand the subject tree on the home page. That gives you a much longer two- and three-level subject list including a journal count for each subheading. So, for example, there are 89 open access journals under Library and information science, which is included in social sciences--and, to take an outstanding example, 123 OA mathematics journals (and another 27 statistics journals).
Blogs
As of mid-July 2008, OAD lists more than 90 blogs that include posts about open access. Here are a few English-language blogs that focus primarily on OA (with one exception), not including Open Access news, since that's already been covered.
DigitalKoans
"What is the sound of one e-print downloading?" Charles W. Bailey, Jr.'s blog on digital scholarship, with a strong emphasis on open access and open source.
Caveat lector
By Dorothea Salo. While this blog is not inherently primarily about open access, Salo is heavily involved with and articulate about issues related to institutional repositories--and also writes frankly and clearly about other aspects of open access. CavLec (the blog's nickname) has become essential for an understanding of the realities of institutional repositories, without which "green OA" doesn't work.
The imaginary journal of poetic economics
"Imagine a world where anyone can instantly access all of the world's scholarly knowledge - as profound a change as the invention of the printing press. Technically, this is within reach. All that is needed is a little imagination, to reconsider the economics of scholarly communications from a poetic viewpoint."
That's the tagline for this Canadian blog from Heather Morrison, which has been around since January 2005. Morrison is an enthusiast, and some of her assertions about the economics of OA are open to question, but she offers lively and generally well-considered coverage.
OA librarian
A group blog with signed posts on a variety of open access issues and resources.
Open and shut?
By Richard Poynder, a British journalist. Open and shut, which began in August 2004, is primarily a remarkable series of extended interviews with people connected to open access but also includes other posts on OA, always well-considered and well-written.
These are mostly very long "posts" (leading to even longer PDFs) that will give you greater insight into the people behind OA.
OptimalScholarship
"Alma Swan's weblog: An occasional commentary on issues that affect the progress of scholarship."
While currently inactive (the most recent post is December 21, 2007), this blog from UK scholarly communications consultant Alma Swan includes a number of worthwhile commentaries related to open access (and other issues). Don't expect once-over-lightly notes; do expect clear, personal, highly informed discussions.
The parachute
"It only works when it opens."
By Jan Velterop. Covers a range of topics. Velterop favors gold OA, but also tends to diminish smaller "non-charging" OA journals as being "on the fringe of scientific and scholarly publishing."
Be openly accessible or be obscure
A relatively new blog by Jim Till, chair of the CIHR Advisory Committee on Access to Research Outputs.
OpenAccessBlog.com
A very recent blog "covering the open access revolution," from Nathan T. Georgette, "a researcher frustrated with endless payment pages."
Georgette offers a distinctive and opinionated view, strongly favoring gold OA over green OA.
Open Access Archivangelism
By Stevan Harnad, the high priest of green OA.
Serials
The key ejournal for open access is The SPARC Open Access Newsletter, already noted.
OAD includes a list of serials that frequently publish articles about open access--some of them with free content, some partially free, some not at all free.
None of the serials listed below focuses solely on OA, and there are others not listed here. Note that these are not all refereed scholarly journals. Content is in HTML/XML form unless otherwise noted.
Ariadne Magazine
Ariadne is a quarterly ejournal from the UK, published by UKOLN and concerned with digital library initiatives and related technological developments. Ariadne began in 1996.
ARL: A Bimonthly Report...
The ARL Bimonthly Report "reports on current issues of interest to academic and research library administrators, staff, and users." From the Association of Research Libraries, an organization of major North American academic and research libraries, this bimonthly has been around for more than 40 years; the site includes archives (PDF articles) dating back to 1995.
Cites & Insights
Cites & Insights is a journal of libraries, policy, technology and media, written and produced by Walt Crawford. Appearing monthly since December 2000, this one-man show typically considers open access issues two or three times a year. Issues are in PDF; all access-related articles from 2004 on are also available in HTML.
D-Lib Magazine
D-Lib has a "primary focus on digital library research and development" and currently appears six times a year. Produced by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), D-Lib began in July 1995; all issues are available online.
The Journal of Electronic Publishing
JEP "is a forum for research and discussion about contemporary publishing practices, and the impact of those practices upon users." Published by the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan University Library, JEP began in 1995 and typically appears three times a year (with a three-year interruption 2003-2005).
Research Information
Research Information is a European bimonthly color print magazine--but its articles are also freely available online from this site, which also includes news items. The online archive dates back to May 2004 and, as of July 2008, includes at least 17 items on open access (recent issues appear not to be fully tagged).
Wikis and other resources
You'll find many more resources at OAD, the Open Access Directory.
This page is no doubt incomplete and possibly biased. Your direct contributions, suggestions on the Talk page, or notes to me via email are invited.
Related articles in PLN
- Open access basics -- A quick starting point.
- Open access overview -- A more complete introduction by Peter Suber.
- Open access: why it matters -- Some of the potential benefits of open access.
- Open access issues -- A few of the issues that remain.
- Open access myths -- Quick notes on some of the myths that continue to be raised.
- Open access controversies -- Nothing is ever simple, and OA is no exception.
- Thinking about libraries and access -- A commentary on libraries and open access from an "open access independent."
