If you think textbooks are expensive, you might be shocked to find out how much scholarly journals cost.  For example, a subscription to the Journal of Fluid Mechanics costs the library $3,250 each year - and that’s just for one journal!

Fortunately, the internet allows alternative publishing options for scholars which can help research become more accessible by removing price barriers.  Open Access literature is available online to be read for free by anyone and is free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.  In addition, Open Access journals are peer reviewed in a manner as rigorous as in conventional journals.

The first ever Open Access Day is on October 14, 2008.  Founded by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science, it intends to build awareness and understanding of Open Access.

As a member of the higher education community, the success of the Open Access movement has direct implications on how you will conduct, find and share research.  Scientific and technological progress relies on the unrestricted sharing of knowledge.  Please take a moment to become more familiar with Open Access by exploring the links below:

• Directory of Open Access Journals: aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content.
• Directory of Open Access Repositories: an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories.  You can search for the full-text of material held in open access repositories or find repositories that fit particular needs.
• Create Change: an educational initiative that examines new opportunities in scholarly communication, advocates changes that recognize the potential of the networked digital environment, and encourages active participation by scholars and researchers to guide the course of change.
• Open Access links: a growing collection of links to web sites dealing with Open Access selected by Dibner librarians.