Saturday, July 29, 2006

Forget Faculty - Let's Sell Open Access (OA) To Librarians

Meredith Farkas over at Information Wants to Be Free has been blogging about the skills needed for 21st century librarianship. Her most recent post (July 29th) finds her "selling" information literacy, and while I like some ideas, she includes a few snoozers - don't we all.

What I like about her blog is her honest attempt at enumerating librarian skills and attitudes for the new information economy. What I don't like is her conspicuous omission of open access, or even a mention of it. In fact, the information literacy post today mentions "peer-review", but not a whit about access. Open access should not be far from the lips of every academic librarian (here's Meredith's Library success wiki and her "access" section).

Open access. Isn't it odd that some librarians miss its connection to absolutely everything we do? and the fact that it's part of the biggest communication and publishing revolution since Gutenberg?

I think OA Librarian needs to work a little harder in getting the message out. Dean

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