We are right in the middle of International Open Access Week!
This year’s theme is “Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge.” During the week of Oct. 22nd – 28th, the academic and research communities make a special effort to share with the wider world the benefits of Open Access.

This week is also a time to “help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.”

What is Open Access, and why is it important? 
Open Access refers “the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need.” Having this ease of access to information can have a huge impact in the fields of medicine, education, and the world as a whole. Get more information at OpenAccessWeek.org.

This quick video does a good job of explaining how Open Access is beneficial and important:

And since we are library people, the more information the better, right? Here are some resources we found that get into Open Access in more detail:

• ACRL has this Scholarly Communication Toolkit full of articles, links to organizations, videos, best practices, and more, all discussing Open Access Policies and Publishing. They even have a section to help you debunk common Open Access myths!
• On IFLA’s Library Policy and Advocacy blog, they share the article “How open access can help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” which highlights the important role of the library community.
• In this article from American Libraries, check out some stats regarding the effort to allow free access to scholarly research.
• This article from Canadian Science Publishing called “Who Needs Open Access” explains the reasons behind the movement and also discusses many of the challenges that need to be handled.

CMLE also has a podcast episode on the topic of Open Access featuring CMLE member Susan Schleper from the Centracare Hospital Library in St. Cloud. Listen here: