Today marks the first day of International Open Access Week (October 22-28). Not sure what Open Access is and why it matters to Dalhousie students and faculty? Read on.

Peter Suber, a leader in the field of Open Access, said it best: Open Access (OA) is the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles. Open Access literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.

The Dalhousie Libraries are developing a repository to make the research done at Dalhousie more visible to the university community and the world. This repository will be a single access point for academic research documents that will showcase the quality and breadth of research conducted at Dal. In addition to faculty profiles, the repository can hold published papers, including conference posters, slide presentations, educational materials, schematics, data, and videos.

The Dalhousie Libraries are making a commitment to Dalhousie scholars and researchers to preserve this material in perpetuity, migrating the data to new platforms over time as technology changes. The key objective of this project is to provide unrestricted permanent access to research for the purpose of advancing knowledge.

The principles of Open Access are founded on ideas of public access to publicly funded research, author rights, availability of educational resources, and affordable access to materials for educational institutions. The Dalhousie Libraries are pleased to be using these principles to bring the research activities of Dalhousie to the world.