Open Access Week 2024

The commercialization of academic publishing and subsequent swelling cost of academic journal subscriptions have created a world of inequitable access to critical research. Practitioners, researchers, students and faculty not attached to a well-funded institution or who can't afford to pay article and/or subscription fees out of their own pockets have a legally impassable barrier to knowledge, regardless of their expertise or even if their tax dollars helped fund the research. Libraries around the world are engaged in many initiatives to push back against this information inequity. Chuck Hodgin, Digital Strategies Librarian at Belmont University, will discuss the steps that Belmont is taking to help bridge this digital divide via the Belmont Digital Repository.

Most scholars have a cursory understanding of copyright law and how it applies to their published scholarship. But many don't know that they have rights well before they're asked to sign copyright agreements and that they can use those rights to ensure versions of their works are shared openly, even when not publishing in open access venues. In this talk, Molly Keener, Director of Digital Initiatives & Scholarly Communication at Wake Forest University, will give a mini "Copyright 101" primer before looking at common rights clauses in publishing contracts, breaking down how author rights can be exercised to maximize discoverability of scholarship, and identifying resources that scholars can use to make confident determinations of their rights as authors.