Story on Open Access in IACRL Newsletter « HSLI Newsletter

"Below is an article I wrote that appeared in the Spring edition of the IACRL Newsletter.  (Sorry I’m sending it to the listserv just now.)  The article covers open access, which continues to affect many aspects of librarianship, mainly because of librarians’ role in providing users with the tools for accessing scholarly articles, and also because of the increasing number of scholarly articles that are appearing in electronic format. A specific piece of legislation that I discuss in the article is Illinois Senate Bill 1900, the 'Open Access to Research Articles Act', which became law on July 9, 2013.  The Act requires that each public institution of higher education in Illinois create an open-access policy.  Such a policy should allow scholarly work produced by faculty to be available in electronic format and to be accessible to as many people as possible, including members of the general public.  This effort should be culminating just about now.  I will provide a future update on what types of plans institutions have created ..."