CANADA: Open access - promises and challenges

"Have you 'googled' yourself lately? Have you wondered why some of your publications did not show up in the search results? Have you ever tried to access one of your own journal articles online, only to be asked to pay US$30 by the publisher? Why are articles by some of your colleagues freely available online in full text even though they were also originally published in commercial journals? Is this permissible? Why is Google Scholar showing that your colleagues' articles are cited more than yours? Why is your institution's library paying millions of dollars each year for journal subscriptions and yet you are still unable to access some of the journals you need for your research?

Why do we give away our work and contribute free labour to refereeing for journals that put restrictions and price barriers on access? Should copyright laws designed to protect the entertainment industry govern the way researchers share and exchange ideas and how they make use of their work for teaching?

Do you know what an institutional repository is and whether your university has one? What could universities do to give the public a better understanding of their mission? Should funding agencies require that publications resulting from their support be made publicly available? If we were to reinvent the scholarly communication system, would we still have restricted access?

The common link between these seemingly disparate questions is Open Access (OA)...."