Open Access Week 2020 is from October 19th-25th. This annual international event is a week of advocacy and discussion focused on making research and scholarly productivity available to everyone without access barriers. Each year the week has a theme, and 2020’s theme is Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.
“…structural racism, discrimination, and exclusion are present and persistent in places where openness is a core value. As a global community, it is important to understand that the systems and spaces of the present are often built upon legacies of historic injustice and that addressing these inequities is a necessity.
We need to examine who these spaces and systems are designed for, who is missing, who is excluded by the business models we use, and whose interests are prioritized. As we work together to rebuild these structures, we need to commit to moving from conversations to concrete commitments and to hold one another accountable for making real progress.”
As a Portland State community, who are we researching for? Who are we inviting in? Who are we excluding? Whom do we elevate and whom do we oppress? What decisions do faculty make to include or exclude readers when they choose how to disseminate their research? How are we inviting our students into these conversations and what unintended exclusive structures and cultures are we passing on?
In the Library we approach this work in a variety of ways. First, the Library is a campus leader on Open Access generally, including, but not limited to, supporting faculty in meeting Faculty Senate’s new Open Access Publication Policy, which would enable folks all over the world to access and learn from PSU research. Additionally, it is core to the Library’s mission to support student success and provide ongoing open access to their work through the amplification and elevation of student voices, and highlighting of their contributions to knowledge. Student research, openly shared worldwide, comprises a significant part of PDXScholar, our institutional repository.
This week we invite you into conversation with each other and with the Portland State Library on the issues raised and addressed by open access.