Open Access Week 2020 - Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion: About Open Access Week

SPARC defines open access as: "the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access ensures that anyone can access and use these results—to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives. ...

International Open Access Week is a time for the wider community to coordinate in taking action to make openness the default for research and to ensure that equity is at the center of this work. ...

Openness can be a powerful tool for building more equitable systems of sharing knowledge. Rebuilding research and scholarship to be open by default presents a unique opportunity to construct a foundation that is fundamentally more equitable. Yet today, structural racism, discrimination, and exclusion are present and persistent in places where openness is a core value. As a global community, it is important to understand that the systems and spaces of the present are often built upon legacies of historic injustice and that addressing these inequities is a necessity." (More about the 2020 theme can be read here.)

Open with a Purpose: Open Access services at the CU Libraries
Wednesday, October 21, 2020 

2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Join library staff in this one hour webinar introducing viewers to scholarly communications and digital scholarship services through the libraries. Speakers will share information about publishing and podcasting services, repository services, data management services, and the use of data for research and teaching. We look forward to seeing you there!

Open with a Purpose: Open Access Initiatives to Foster Linguistic Diversity in Scholarship (panel)
Thursday, October 22, 2020

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Around the world, English has become the dominant language in academic publishing. Yet the ubiquity of the English language often places scholars for whom English is a foreign language at a disadvantage. Likewise the absence of multilingual or native language publications erodes local knowledge as researchers from non-Anglophone regions lack venues to share their research findings with their home communities. In a global information ecosystem, English language publications can reach across the globe, but can only be read by a percentage of the population. While many large or for-profit publishers lack financial incentives to develop publications for smaller linguistic constituencies, open access initiatives sponsored by universities, government agencies, and non-profit funders are evolving to meet the needs of multilingual research communities and bring knowledge to new audiences.

For Open Access Week 2020, “Open with a Purpose,” join Columbia University Libraries and some of our publishing partners to explore initiatives on our campus that are working to develop multilingual communities and open infrastructure to foster linguistic diversity.

Columbia Libraries Publishing Partners:

• Pamela Smith and Naomi Rosencranz: Making & Knowing Project
• Riga Shakya: Waxing Moon: A Journal of Tibetan and Himalyan Studies
• Alex Gil: archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis