Advocacy for Open Access

Abstract

In the scholarly communications world, the concept of open access publishing has proliferated at faster pace since the global open access declarations such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) in February 2002 and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in October 2003. After one decade of these two epoch-making declarations, we see growing instances of open access resources due to collective efforts put by the advocacy organizations, advocacy groups and individual advocates for open access. As a library and information professional, all you need to do is to promote creation, deployment, mobilization and utilization of OA resources to your users groups, particularly to young researchers, academics and students communities. Some countries also have started social movements with appropriate national legislations promoting students' access to research, as well as taxpayers' access to public funded research. There are also advocacy groups in different geographical regions, who are trying hard to influence their respective national legislators and policymakers in making open access a national mandate for achieving universal access to research literature. Recent two European projects aim at engaging academic researchers in creating and contributing OA literature out of their public-funded research projects. In this Unit, various global advocacy initiatives are briefly discussed to help the library and information professionals in strengthening their efforts in sensitizing, awareness raising and promoting the concept of open access to knowledge at the local and national level.