Open-Publishing

Hahn, T.B., Burright, M., and Duggan, H.N. (2011). Has the revolution in scholarly communication lived up its promise.  Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 37(5), 24-28.

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Abstract of the Article:

Hahn et al. (2011) propose the Open Access Institutional Repository Model for scholarly communication “where scholars (may) share their works with few or no legal and financial barriers” and where these scholarly materials may be disseminated to audience around the world.  In line with this, Hahn et al. (2011) explore the various roles librarians can play in scholarly communication. By supporting the Open Access Institutional Repository Model, librarians may help shrink the gap between dwindling library budget and increasing cost of library materials.  The professional expertise of librarians with respect to copyright and scholarly communication equips the former to lobby for better terms of agreement (e.g. opt-out clauses, less content bundling, and lower prices) with traditional publishing companies in favor of the scholar and the larger public. Lastly, librarians can contribute in raising the awareness of the community as to the availability of these open access mechanisms as an alternative to what Hahn et al. (2011) describe  as “prohibitively costly and restrictive” traditional model of publishing.

3 Things I Learned:

1.       Scholarly Communication is an umbrella term which encompasses “all activities and norms of scholars related to creating and disseminating new knowledge”.

2.       Impact Factor is based on the assumption that “the number of times articles are cited relates to their importance in the field”.  It is one of the tools used in open access publication; so much for its credit or discredit for that matter, such articles will then be considered the core collection of a particularly field.

3.       The Public Library of Science, which is launched in 2003, serves as the open access business model for open access publishing.

Application / Implication:

Utilizing the various mechanisms of the open access movement offers nothing but advantages to any library and information center.  But as a word of caution, we as librarians, as information professionals, and most importantly as end-users must critically assess the scholarly value and relevance of these open access publications since the quality of our output is to a certain extent dependent on the quality of information we feed upon ourselves.