Ontario Council of University Libraries Joins Public Knowledge Project as Major Development Partner in Open Access Scholarly Publishing | Public Knowledge Project

“Building on an established record of success in supporting nearly 100 open access journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS), the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) announces a major development partnership with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). The partnership means that OCUL, will contribute to software development, testing, support, and hosting of the PKP open source software suite - Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Conference Systems (OCS), and Open Harvester System (OHS), with Open Monograph Press (OMP) due for release this year... ‘The open access momentum is building in Ontario’s universities, mirroring the transformation of scholarly communications practices everywhere’ noted Margaret Haines, OCUL Chair and University Librarian at Carleton University, ‘Staff in five of our libraries have a wealth of experience with OJS, having worked with these systems over the past 8 years. In late 2011, OCUL decided to support its members by opening an OJS hosting service provided by Scholars Portal, our shared technology infrastructure; as a result, there are already two new libraries supporting OJS on their campuses.’ The OJS and software development expertise held by staff in OCUL member libraries and the Scholars Portal Operations Team will contribute greatly to the partnership with PKP. OCUL strives to be a leader in the development of partnerships to expand Canada’s digital research infrastructure. Scholars Portal preserves and provides access to information resources collected and shared by Ontario’s university libraries, including more than 13,000 full-text journals. OCUL has committed to support open access journals by including this content in Scholars Portal. Haines stated, ‘We expect continued strategic open access activity; with the support of all of our members this year, OCUL has welcomed the opportunity for a major development partnership with PKP.’ John Willinsky, Khosla Family Professor of Education at Stanford University, Distinguished Scholar in Residence at SFU Library and Professor (Limited Term) in Publishing Studies at Simon Fraser University, and founding Director of PKP stated ‘The extensive and effective cooperation that OCUL has brought about among research libraries in Ontario is very much in the spirit of PKP’s own efforts to contribute to a broader intellectual commons, and as a former Ontario school teacher, as well as one who found his early inspiration in a few of those very libraries, I am especially delighted to be entering into partnership with OCUL.’ OCUL is a consortium of Ontario’s 21 university libraries. Its strength lies in its commitment to work together to maximize collective expertise and resources. OCUL enhances information services in Ontario and beyond through collective purchasing and shared digital information infrastructure, collaborative planning, advocacy, assessment, research, partnerships, communications, and professional development.”