... The stereotype around librarians and Open Access is that librarians are on board mostly because we think that we’ll end up getting to ax expensive journals and thus solve our “serials crisis.” (Can a “crisis” last twenty years?)
I’m sure a lot of librarians do think that, especially directors and heads of collection development and others who have to write checks to Elsevier and similar corporations. But for the reference librarian, I think the thought process is a little different.
Instead of thinking of the up-front cost of the journal, we reference librarians are thinking more about helping people one-on-one. ...
So it is a big drag if instead of being able to give someone the perfect source, we instead end up with just a citation and not the full text in hand or online. It is no fun at all if instead of a full text PDF we find a web page demanding a credit card number to buy the three-page article for thirty bucks. Where is the satisfaction in telling someone to go to ILL? That is an itch unscratched. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 3/06/2008 04:04:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
