Being Earnest with Collections: Investing in Open Access at a Small Academic Library
abernard102@gmail.com 2015-10-30
Summary:
" ... So in honor of Open Access Week, I’d like to share what we librarians are doing at Rollins College to support the movement. We are a small liberal arts college with a graduate business school, located in Winter Park, Florida. We’ve found over the past few years that while our faculty continue to actively recommend library purchases, those numbers have declined. Meanwhile we review every serial and database subscription annually to make sure we’re using our funds effectively. Even without a cancellation mandate, we’re identifying low-hanging fruit-- subscriptions that have little or no usage and high costs. These factors have enabled us to find more effective uses for some of our library funds. We have canceled some subscriptions and added new ones. We have also invested in open access, to do our part in opening up the information landscape for our own patrons and for the world at large. Rollins is a leader in open access. Our College of Arts & Sciences faculty passed an Open Access Policy in 2010. According to our Library Director Jonathan Miller, we were the third liberal arts college faculty to adopt a policy of open access, following the Harvard model ..."