CLA Open Access Pre-Conference: Transitioning to Open Access: Action and Advocacy

Transitioning to Open Access: Action and Advocacy
Wednesday, July 11, 2007, 9:00 - noon
Earl and Jennie Lohn Floor Policy Room
Simon Fraser University - Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
Canada

The Canadian Library Association's Task Force on Open Access warmly invites you to join us, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) for a presentation and discussion on transitioning to open access. This is a pre-conference to the PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference 2007 (http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/index.php)

Participants will learn about open access action and advocacy efforts underway, learn more about open access and/or develop confidence in their abilities to act as catalysts for open access, and develop a network of colleagues with whom to share ideas and issues in your own open access initiatives.

Presentation 9:00 - 10:30
Speakers:

Heather Joseph, SPARC
SPARC has been active in engaging in open access advocacy on the local institutional, federal and international policy levels. SPARC’s strategy is focused on reducing barriers to access, sharing and use of scholarly information, and its highest priority is advancing the understanding and implementation of open access to research results. Heather will provide an update on SPARC’s recent advocacy activities as well as a snapshot of the current open access policy climate.

Heather Morrison, CLA Task Force on Open Access
The Canadian Library Association adopted a Resolution on Open Access in 2005. The mandate of the CLA Task Force on Open Access is to draft recommendations on policy for CLA's own publications, draft a position statement on open access for Canadian libraries on behalf of CLA, and liaise with other library associations, such as CARL. Heather will report on activities to date, such as drafted a response to the CIHR Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs, and planned.

Kathleen Shearer, CARL
Institutional repositories (IRs) are one of the major planks in the strategy for achieving open access. In 2002, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries launched an institutional repository project to support their members in implementing IRs. Kathleen Shearer will provide an overview of the project and discuss the opportunities and challenges for research libraries in supporting the open access movement.

Break 10:30 - 11:00

Discussion Groups: 11:00 - 12:00
The morning's speakers will briefly join each of the discussion groups, which will be led by members of the CLA's Open Task Force. Depending on interests of participants, discussion group questions may include:

• What policy and advocacy initiatives could my library undertake to promote open access to scholarly literature?
• What policy and advocacy initiatives could the CLA and/or CARL undertake to promote open access to scholarly literature?
• Share successful initiatives (and failures) that have been undertaken at your institution to promote open access/changes to the scholarly communications system.

Registration is required. Registration is online, at http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/registration.php

If you have already registered for the PKP conference, please register again for the CLA preconference. The two registrations can be combined into one single payment if desired.

CLA members: $40
non-members: $50

The website for Transitioning to Open Access: Action and Advocacy is http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/cla-pre-conference.php.