General Open Access Resources

The purpose of this resource page is to collect links related to Open Access issues which have come to our attention through various sources. Their inclusion does not necessarily indicate endorsement by Scientific Library staff. To suggest additional sources, please send us an email.

See also NIH Public Access Policy - Manuscript Submission

Definitions and Overviews

About Open Access
Definition of Open Access publication

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (PDF)
Definition of An Open Access Contribution

Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (PDF)
Definition of Open Access publication

Directory of Open Access Journals: Definitions - Lund University Libraries
As of March 2005, the directory contains 1512 open access journals

EPrints Handbook: Overview
A Guide to self-archiving and Open Access

Framing the Issue - Open Access
Definition, resources, and examples of Open Access implementation by Association of Research Libraries

Open Access Overview
An introduction to Open Access (OA)

Open Access Overview
An overview of Open Access by Cornell library

Public Knowledge - Open Access
Issues on Open Access

Public Library of Science (PLoS): Open Access
Definition and resources on Open Access

Timeline of the Open Access Movement
Formerly called the Timeline of the Free Online Scholarship Movement

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Policies and Proposals

AAU Statement of NIH Public Access Proposal (PDF)
Association of American Universities Statement on NIH Public Access Proposal

The Alliance
Organizational alliances that support open public access to taxpayer-funded research. 

Berlin Declaration on Open Access
A commitment from Germany's principal scientific and scholarly institutions and other European counterparts to Open Access for scientific and scholarly research

Bethesda Statement on Open Access Funding
Principles and guidelines to promote the transition to Open Access publishing

Budapest Open Access Initiative
A statement of principle, strategy, and commitment on Open Access

E-BIOMED: A Proposal for Electronic Publications in the Biomedical Sciences
Electronic communication of Biomedical research

Public Access to NIH-Funded Research
Final NIH Policy, News Releases and Related Articles, Public Comments on Proposed NIH Policy, and Meeting Summaries

Registry of Institutional OA Self-Archiving Policies
Institutions and Open Access archives and policies

SPARC
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

Washington DC Principles for Free Access to Science
A statement by nonprofit medical and scientific communities

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Open Access Journal Lists

BioMed Central
Publisher of peer-reviewed Open Access Biomedical research

Biomedical Digital Libraries
Digital libraries in a Biomedical context

Directory of Open Access Journals
A directory supported by Open Society Institute and SPARC of Lund University, Sweden

Free Online Full-text Journals
Highwire-hosted journals with some free full-text

FreeMedicalJournals.com
Information about new free medical journals

Library Publishing Media
Journals in Biomedical Sciences

Peer-reviewed Open Access Journals
Journals of Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), BioMed Central (BMC), and PubMed Central (PMC)

Public Library of Science
Public access to the world's scientific and medical literature supported by a nonprofit organization

PubMed Central
A digital archive of Life Sciences journal literature by U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)

SocioSite
Information and resources for sociologists and social scientists; SocioSite is a member of the International Consortium for the Advancement of Academic Publications (ICAAP) and is distributed free to promote uncommercialized scholarly communication.

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Initiatives/Organizations

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, October 22, 2003
A commitment from Germany's principal scientific and scholarly institutions and other European counterparts to Open Access for scientific and scholarly research

Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, June 20, 2003
Definition, statements, and list of participants 

Budapest Open Access Initiative, February 14, 2002
Sponsored by Open Society Institute

Create Change
A commitment to support faculty and librarians in scholarly communication

CrossRef
Independent membership association, founded and directed by publishers with a mandate to connect users to primary research content, by enabling publishers to work collectively.

Johns Hopkins University - Scholarly Communications Group

Lists Related to the Open Access Movement
Ways to contribute to Open Access (OA) cause

The Open Archives Initiative 
News and events related to Open Archives Initiative

Public Knowledge Project 
See in particular:  Open Journal Systems and Open Conference Systems.

SPARC
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

SPARC - Europe  
An alliance of European research libraries, library organizations, and research institutions

Wellcome Trust Position Statement Supporting Open Access
An endorsement of Open Access from a UK funding agency and private benefactor of medical research

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News

ACS broadens article access - Conditions set for free availability one year after publication (March 7, 2005)

Open Access - now
Information for Life Science researchers about issues in Open Access publishing

Open Access News - News from the open access movement (updated daily)
News bulletin about the Open-Access movement

Open Access News Blog  
A guide to Self-Archiving and Open Access (OA) Eprint Archives by EPrints.org

Open Access Journals: a news and update site
Selected news and updates on the status of Open Access journal initiative

SPARC Europe News
SPARC Europe is supported by LIBER, IWI, JISC, SCONUL, SPARC, and UKB   http://www.sparceurope.org/index.html

The SPARC Open Access Newsletter

SPARC Open Access Newsletter and Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter Archive (monthly)

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Fora

American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum
4440 messages sorted by: [ author ] [ date ] [ subject ] [ attachment ]

Budapest Open Access Initiative
A moderated discussion list to support the Budapest Open Access Initiative

Nature Debates: e-access
Online forum hosted by Nature Online about implications for future dissemination of scientific information

Open Access Now Forum
Debate about Open Access within the scientific community

Ownership and Access in Scholarly Publishing
A free forum on Open Access publishing co-hosted by University of Maryland, Baltimore and Johns Hopkins University Libraries

SPARC Open Access Newsletter and Discussion Forum
A discussion forum moderated by Peter Suber

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Archives and Repositories

The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access
Opportunities of self-archiving and Open Access  

The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper
Institutional repositories

Directory of Mathematics Preprint and e-Print Servers
From the American Mathematical Society, links to mathematical preprint and e-print servers throughout the world

DSpace
A repository software developed by MIT for digital archiving needs

EPrints Handbook
A guide to self-archiving, Open Access, and Eprints management

Institutional Repositories
Partnering with Faculty to Enhance Scholarly Communication

Library Journal: Institutional Repositories
Implementation of repository models

NetPrints
Clinical Medicine & Health Research - repository of non-peer reviewed original research (now closed to new submissions)

OAIster
Search engine for Open Access literature from University of Michigan

OpCit: The Open Citation Project
A description of Reference Linking and Citation Analysis for Open Archives

Open-access archives and repositories
A list of archives and repositories

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Frequently Asked Questions

Biomedical Digital Libraries
Digital libraries in a Biomedical context

Budapest Open Access Initiative
Sponsored by Open Society Institute

Enhanced public access to NIH-funded research  
Prue Adler's FAQ on Open Access policy

Open Access - now
A series of short guides to Open Access publishing

NIH Public-Access Policy: Frequently Asked Questions

Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Nonprofit organization composed of scientists and physicians

Self-Archiving FAQ: for the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI)

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Other Resources 

Alliance for Taxpayer Access Press Release - (December 26, 2007)

American Chemical Society Introduces Two New Policies to Broaden Access
The Society responds to New NIH policy from early 2005 

Association of American Universities Statement

BioMed Central Press Release - (February 7, 2005)

Economics of Open-Access Journals, by Mark McCabe, Georgia Institute of Technology and Christopher M. Synder, George Washington University (PDF)

Open Access Bibliography by Charles Bailey

Open Access or Differential Pricing for Journals: The Road Best Traveled? by David Stern

Open-Access Scholarly Publishing by Malcolm Getz, Department of Economics at Vanderbilt University.  The article examines university expenditures under the Open-Access publishing model (PDF) 

Open Access Webliography by Adrian K. Ho and Charles W. Bailey, Jr.

The Promise and Peril of 'Open Access'  Chronicle of Higher Education, January 30, 2004 

Removing Barriers to Research: An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians by Peter Suber, College & Research Libraries News, February 2003

Scholarly Associations and the Economic Viability of Open Access Publishing by John Willinsky, Journal of Digital Information, Volume 4 Issue 2 (April 9, 2003)

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