IFLA Statement on Open Access

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) just released a major statement on OA. "IFLA will promote open access with a clear focus on the access issue....As the rate and amount of research publication in various forms is rapidly expanding, the current predominant scholarly communication model – via scholarly journals subscriptions – is hardly sustainable and not working effectively in the interests of the global community....Even the most well endowed research library cannot afford to purchase all of the content requested by its faculty and students. The situation is even more critical for smaller college and universities and largely unacceptable for institutions in the developing world, with severely limited or no budgets....Authors are concerned because their work is not seen by all their peers, they may not get the global recognition they seek, and often they continue, even unnecessarily, to transfer copyright, which limits the use and reuse of their own works. Readers cannot access all the scholarly literature they need, and thus their research activities can be less effective....IFLA will work with global organizations and fora such as UN, UNESCO, WHO, WIPO, WSIS and others in promoting and advocating open access to publicly funded research, educational resources and cultural heritage....IFLA will establish partnerships with and provide support to organizations, programmes, initiatives and services that are promoting of Open Access, such as SPARC (US/Europe/Japan), COAR, OASPA, Bioline International & DOAJ, among others....Open access is a central pillar of IFLA’s Strategic Plan 2010-2015 in which a whole-oforganisation approach is taken to integrating the issue into IFLA’s current and proposed activities. IFLA will advise its member associations in regard to: [1] promoting open access in national policies; [2] stimulating library members to promote open access in their communities and to implement measures to enlarge the impact of open access; [3] enriching the local and national information infrastructure in order to stimulate open access; [4] assistance in the work for national policies regarding open access to knowledge, as well as to publicly funded research and cultural heritage; [5] supporting organizations, programmes, initiatives and services that are working for the promotion of open access. Together with partners as SPARC, EIFL and LIBER, IFLA will also provide its member associations with advocacy material and practical guidelines in line with the recommendations....IFLA will develop a transition plan that specifies the steps to be taken to transform IFLA’s publications into open access....."