Supporting Open Access
"AN OPEN CONVERSATION
Both Taylor and Schiff agreed that scholars and researchers need to be a significant part of the Open Access discussion. “Librarians like myself are very much Open Access advocates,” Taylor observed, “but it’s important for us to keep an open mind. We need to listen to what our researchers, scholars, students, and administrators want.” She cautioned against giving only the positive benefits of Open Access for institutions, without understanding the concerns and reservations of those doing the research.
“It’s important to get correct information out there,” Schiff added, “but it’s important to get scholars to jump into the conversation. For example, it would be great if scholars were more involved in discussing the economic challenges in the scholarly communication world. Librarians are naturally involved because our budgets are a huge part of that mix. But we’re paying for the work of scholars. They not only need to be more informed about how their work is part of this economic ecosystem, they also need to advocate for how they think that ecosystem should be sustained—and how resources should be allocated.”"
