The Leatherby Libraries is proud to celebrate Open Access Week 2019 from October 21-27. Open Access Week is an international celebration, originally put together by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and student advocates, with aims to make openness the default for research. This year’s theme is “Open for Whom? Equity in Open Knowledge” and has a particular focus on considering whose interests are being prioritized and whose voices are being excluded when we think about research as “open,” and calls on us to advocate for equitable participation and platform support as much as we do access to information.

The Leatherby Libraries has a longstanding dedication to promoting open access here at Chapman University, particularly through Chapman University Digital Commons, our institutional repository that just celebrated its fifth anniversary in August.  With over 26,000 objects and 775,000 downloads from over 220 countries and territories around the world, Chapman University Digital Commons remains one of our top tools for openly disseminating the scholarly and creative works of Chapman’s faculty, staff, and students to readers around the world.

The Leatherby Libraries also provides guidance to members of the Chapman community on topics related to open access, whether it be questions about publication or a desire to increase equity for students through the use of open educational resources (OERs), such as open textbooks. Much information is available in the research guides (such as this one on open access and this one on OERs), and the Coordinator of Scholarly Communications & Electronic Resources, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker, is always on hand to work with you on any questions you might have.

We also showcase open access resources in our library collections. For example, did you know the entirety of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is included in the Journal A-Z list?  The DOAJ includes over 12,000 high-quality, peer-reviewed, open access journals that must pass a strict vetting process to be included. Members of the Chapman community can easily find research from these resources by looking up individual titles or in general searches in the Start Your Search/Discover toolbar at the top of the library webpage. We will also soon be adding a library display with various books about open access and related issues from our collections.

Furthermore, we will be working in the near future to build up our support for open access resources even more, whether it be through increasing visibility of open access monographs in our collections or developing improved methods to help faculty find and evaluate open educational resources for their courses.

Do you want to participate in Open Access Week? Want to showcase your research in Chapman University Digital Commons? Or do you just have questions related to open access, OERs, or anything related to scholarly communication? Feel free to reach out to the Coordinator of Scholarly Communications & Electronic Resources, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker, at laughtin@chapman.edu. You can also visit the Open Access Week website to find a list of webinars from around the world on all things open and participate in this global celebration!

The header image is an official Open Access Week 2019 theme graphic by Nick Shockey and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.