Every October libraries, societies, publishers, and authors around the world celebrate International Open Access Week as an opportunity to discuss and explore the issues related to information access. This year’s theme is “Open for Climate Justice” recognizing openness as essential to combating the knowledge inequities that impact climate change.

What is Open Access?

Simply put, Open Access is the dissemination of scholarly information at no cost to readers. It is the immediate availability of research and the right to access and use research results to further knowledge and discovery. Explore the factors that determine the accessibility of Open Access content through Galter’s OA resources.

Galter Library’s Open Access Resources and Guides

Through the services provided by the Metrics and Impact Core, liaison librarians and Galter DataLab, Galter Library staff provide consultation and support on various scholarly communication and research data management issues, including Open Access (OA): 

• The NIH Public Access Policy guide describes NIH Public Access Policy and compliance, including the process for obtaining PMCIDs. This includes information about the law that mandated NIH Public Access Policy as well as Policy FAQs. 
• The Open Access Publishing guide provides information on identifying OA journals, making use of open repositories, and finding university-related discounts for OA publishing. The Additional Open Access Resources tab leads to directories and organizations, as well as sources of information about Open Education Resources and Open Science. 
• The Open Access Health Resources guide connects researchers with OA resources in medicine, including directories, databases, publishers, journals, books, grey literature sources, as well as reference and training resources.