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In recognition of Open Access Week 2011 (Oct. 24-28), I participated in three presentations over 4 weeks: 2 local, 1 online. To unofficially kick things off, I spoke on Oct. 6, along with Bill Kane, at the Thursdays at Byrum Center series on supporting scholarship. I spoke generally about why I do what I do, and specifically about what it is I do. Bill then shared about what it is that he is doing, which if you were at our Sept. staff meeting, you know (hint, hint it involves ISBNs).

My online presentation was on Monday afternoon during the official Open Access Week. I was one of three speakers (John Wilbanks and Heather Piwowar presented before me) giving a webinar for the Special Libraries Association on New Directions in Scholarly Communication, what STM librarians and other information professionals need to know about changes in the nature of scholarly publishing. John, former VP at Creative Commons, spoke about broad changes to scholarship, from creation to discovery. Heather, a postdoc with NESCent through the DataONE cyberinfrastructure project, spoke about the increasing importance of data management and discovery. I wrapped things up by offering a librarian’s perspective on the changes, and how they are impacting our ability to support scholarship creation at our institutions. (My slides are linked from the page above.)

To conclude Open Access Week celebrations, I gave a talk this past Wednesday, Nov. 2, on current copyright conflicts in academe. There was a small but lively crowd on hand to hear the latest on three different lawsuits (Georgia State copyright trial, AIME vs. UCLA, Author’s Guild vs. HathiTrust) and proposed legislation currently before Congress (PRTECT IP/SOPA/ePARASITES…really, I’m not making that last one up!). Great questions and heated debate ensued, illustrating just how complex the issues are surrounding these cases/legislation, and how profoundly they impact higher education.

All in all, I had a great time honoring the spirit of openness during these various Open Access Week activities, and am energized to continue advocating for change in scholarly communication!