October 24-30 is International Open Access Week. This annual event focuses on openness in research and scholarship. It is an opportunity for scholars and open access supporters around the world to share their commitment, advocate for action, and participate locally.
The Nelson Poynter Memorial Library has been a strong advocate of open access for several years; the most visible example of this is the USFSP Digital Archive, which provides access to scholarly works of our faculty, staff, and students. Library faculty also plays an important role in educating and advising the academic community on open access and related issues, including publishing and copyright.
This year’s Open Access Week theme is Open in Action. We encourage scholars here at USFSP to participate by engaging in the conversation and helping showcase actions you’ve taken and plan to take, to make you research and scholarship more open. To see past faculty testimonials, go to our About The Archive page and click on READ FACULTY TESTIMONIALS ABOUT THE ARCHIVE.
How can you participate? Here are some ways (library staff and faculty will assist you):
· Share your scholarly works by submitting them to the USFSP Digital Archive.
· Publish in open access journals.
· Serve on editorial boards of open access journals.
· Learn about copyright and exercise your rights.
To begin this conversation, here is a testimonial from USFSP librarian, scholar, and archivist, Jim Schnur:
“As an educator since 1986 and a librarian for the past two decades, I have sought to connect students and researchers to information. Access to information empowers; open, unfettered access to trusted sources and quality scholarship enlightens. I served as part of the team that brought the USFSP Digital Archive to campus five years ago. I have also created a presence in our digital repository that allows me to share more than 250 presentations, research, publications, and professional activities with learners throughout the world. As we move to the new and expanded Digital USFSP portal, I know we will expand our commitment to open access so today’s students are better prepared to be tomorrow’s leaders.”
Share your thoughts with us now about what you have done and actions you will take to support open access. You can start by submitting a comment or question here, under “Leave a Reply.”
Coming soon: For more than five years, the Library has hosted the USFSP Digital Archive to support faculty and student scholarship, university archives, and community outreach documents. In the coming months, we will transition to a new platform—Digital Commons by bepress—and change the name of the archive to Digital USFSP. Faculty will also have access to SelectedWorks, a tool that will allow them to showcase their scholarship and creative works, maximize readership, and track impact.
USFSP Open Access 
Thank you so much to you and all librarians, educators, and free thinkers involved in this project, and for your commitment to making information truly accessible. Knowledge should never be a privilege of wealth and health. As someone who teaches, I even cannot begin to express how deeply grateful I am, to all such as you, who undertake the hard responsibility of making accessible the resources so necessary for a free mind. There are many of my own students who would never be able to afford research if it were not for efforts such as yours. I truly fear the “industrial-educational” complex (to rephrase president Eisenhower’s statement a little). Without your librarians’ passion for knowledge for all, I wonder how many of us in this day and age would truly have free access to knowledge. What can be more precious than a free mind? Thank you so much for all you do. Keep fighting the good fight.
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