Atkins Library symposium to focus on Open Access

The J. Murrey Atkins Library will hold a symposium on Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 4-5, to promote the tenets of the Open Access (OA) movement in the publishing of scientific and scholarly literature.

Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles, coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. The international OA movement aims to create a more open system of scholarly communication by reducing barriers to the access, sharing and use of scholarship.

The library symposium’s first day will feature speakers from two OA peer-reviewed scientific journals – PeerJ and Nature. They will discuss the move to open access publishing. Also, Jennifer Weller, associate professor of bioinformatics, will moderate a panel featuring University faculty who have experience with editing/publishing open access works. The discussants will be Michael Fiddy, professor of physics and optical science and electrical and computer engineering; Cynthia Gibas, associate professor of bioinformatics and genomics; Rich Lambert, professor of education; Dennis Livesay, associate professor of bioinformatics and genomics; and Ron Sass, professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Day two of the symposium will focus on topics that will be of interest to librarians from regional academic institutions, according to organizers. Peggy Hoon, scholarly communications librarian for the University, will discuss OA and licensing issues. Heather McCullough, head of digital scholarship, will talk about Open Access publishing with the library; and Stephen Dew, collections and scholarly resources coordinator, University Libraries, UNC Greensboro, will share his institution’s Library Faculty Resolution on Open Access. Jo Ann Fernald, director of UNC Charlotte’s Office of Disability Services, will finish the day with a talk on library resources, best practices and disability services with fair use.

Hoon stated, “Open Access to scholarly works benefits researchers, institutions, countries and society as a whole through increased visibility, usage and access. As a growing research institution, UNC Charlotte can join its esteemed worldwide colleagues in expressing basic approval of the fundamental tenets of Open Access publishing.”

The symposium is an extension of the recent International Open Access Week, which Atkins Library observed with a series of events. A schedule is the Web.