Why is Open Access Important?

What is Open Access, and why do I think it is so important?

Cheryl
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Original posting date: August 11, 2024

Car crashes suck. Especially when someone you know and love is injured.

A few years ago, while I was looking for a new librarian job after finishing a contract, my father and grandmother were in a car crash. Since I was the only cousin who was neither actively employed nor in school, my parents and I decided it would be good for everyone if I moved back home to help my family deal with the extensive aftermath.

But this post isn’t about car crashes. It’s about Open Access, and why it’s important.

Photo of a "Road Closed" barrier
Image by 00luvicecream from Pixabay

Even before the crash, I was searching for a new contract in a library, so I needed to do everything I could to keep up-to-date with what was happening in my profession. Many of the things I wanted to read weren’t super easy to access, but I cobbled together a variety of ways to (legally) maneuver around most of the barriers to access. Often, I relied on living in Toronto and being a member of the Toronto Public Library.

After my move, there were new barriers to information sources I’d relied on to stay in touch with my profession. With my new family obligations in a city I hadn’t lived in for over a decade, I didn’t have the time to hunt down every tiny loophole that would give me access to information I needed, but wanted me to pay.

Access denied. Would you like to subscribe? Or buy just this article?

No. I was living on an extremely limited budget. Cat food was much more important.

“Cats over books! Choose cat food!”

Einstein

Access got even worse in early 2020 when I was finally starting to apply for jobs in my field. Many of the work-arounds I’d come up with involved actually visiting a university library, and suddenly they weren’t open to the general public.

I found Open Access resources. I had used them before and been a strong supporter of the concept of “research and other work that governments fund that is not a risk to public safety should be publicly available to all tax payers.” But suddenly being on the other side of most pay- or physical walls made me hyper-aware of just how many there are out there. Now I needed to use Open Access.

If only a few people have access to a newly discovered crumb of knowledge, how can their work improve society, let alone help answer the questions of the continually curious?

…disseminating knowledge is only half complete if the information is not made widely and readily available to society…

Berlin Declaration on Open Access

So What is Open Access?

Open Access material:

  • has no paywalls or other financial barriers
  • has no or limited legal barriers to how you can use it
  • has no technical barriers to access for people with basic internet access

Note: In the wild, “Open Access” usually refers to academic, peer reviewed publications. However, I personally prefer to use it as an umbrella term including: Open Access Journals, Open Education content, and Open Data sources.

At its core, Open Access is all about making sure as many people as possible have the ability to use the information that other people have discovered. This is especially important when the research process was paid for with public tax dollars.

In Canada, the US, and many other democratic and mostly-democratic countries, it is becoming more and more common for governments to require the results of publicly-funded research grants be published from the get-go in Open Access journals, or at least be digitally accessible within a year of publication in a non-Open Access journal. (Usually through a website, often an institutional “repository,” or “depository.” Probably not an institutional “suppository,” but maybe some University has made a crappy name choice…)

But why stop at pure research? Many textbooks are written by professors employed by tax-payer funded universities, colleges, and other post-secondary schools.

Open Education Resources are becoming more common, too.

Why should you encourage Open initiatives?

For the child living in a refugee camp. With Open Education resources and a cell phone with internet, they can study and one day become a researcher who will help cure your cancer.

For researchers working at your nearby tax-payer funded University. With Open Access, they can read the work of others, and build on that rather than spending time and money to research things that have already been discovered.

For the engineering team designing a bridge. With Open Access, they can learn that the soil the bridge support structure will be dug into will not play well with the new material they want to use without needing to pay for access, resulting in a cheaper, more durable bridge.

For the person who chose to take a career break to help their family. With Open Access, they can reduce their stress levels when searching for what they need to keep up with their career. They can get their butt back to what they’ve trained and love to do much, much quicker.

For a better, brighter future. Lets be Open to it.

Want to learn more?

Global Perspectives

University Guides to Open Access

Most of these focus on academic journals and Open Access

Edited: fixed grammar error

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