Create Change Canada

It’s easy to stay up to date on changes in scholarly communications with Open Access News, a daily updated blog that closely follows the latest developments. But there are many additional resources to aid you and your colleagues: 

Your Library

Librarians have been leaders in the movement for expanded sharing of scholarship. Here are some of the many library resources available to you:

• Meet with your department’s liaison in the library to get the facts behind scholarly communication issues.
• Read and share the brochures on scholarly communication topics made available by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and SPARC.
• Visit the SPARC website, the ARL scholarly communications web page, the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Scholarly Communication Toolkit.

Newsletters

For analysis of open access developments:

• Sign up to receive the e-mailed SPARC Open Access Newsletter or visit the newsletter’s online archive. There’s also a companion e-mail list, the SPARC Open Access Forum.

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries offers:

• The CARL E-Lert, a weekly alerting service coverage research, innovation, scholarly publishing, scholarly communication, scholarly journals, electronic journals, copyright and access to published government information.
  [English / Français]

Websites 

Several organizations’ websites offer a wealth of information on the movement for expanded sharing of scholarship:

• The Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA) is a leading advocate for free online access to findings of publicly funded research. The Alliance’s website provides information on relevant legislative and agency activity.
• The Canadian Association of Research Libraries Open Access and Institutional Repositories web pages provide resources and updates in the Canadian environment.
  Open Access [English / Français]
  Institutional Repositories [English / Français]

• The Association of College and Research Libraries’ Scholarly Communication Toolkit is designed to provide information on scholarly communication issues for faculty, academic administrators, librarians, and other campus stakeholders. It summarizes key issues, giving readers quick, basic information on scholarly communication topics.

• The SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) website offers a wide range of information and resources on public access advocacy, open access publishing, institutional repositories, and more.

Blogs 

Open Access News isn’t the only worthwhile scholarly communication blog. Libraries and librarians have created other excellent blogs on the topic. These are some good examples:

• Issues in Scholarly Communication, which covers the changing landscape for the Georgia State University community.

• The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign library, which keeps in touch with its campus community with a blog that’s also dubbed Issues in Scholarly Communication.

• The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, one librarian’s effort to make the case for “a world where anyone can instantly access all of the world’s scholarly knowledge.”

Discussion lists

For those who enjoy a lively email list:

• Join Sigma Xi’s American Scientist Open Access Forum.

SPARC also sponsors discussions on topics of interest to the academic community via these targeted e-mail lists:

• SPARC Institutional Repositories enables subscribers to ask questions, share best practices, and debate issues relevant to development of institution-based open digital archives.

• SPARC Open Data is a forum for participants to explore issues of access to digital data associated with peer-reviewed scientific research.