Open access (OA) to scholarly literature recently hit a major milestone: Half of all research articles published become open access, either immediately or after an embargo period. Are the articles you read among them? What about the articles you write? Are the journals to which you submit open-access friendly? What about the journals for which you peer review? Are there any reasons why the public should not have access to the results of taxpayer-funded research?

Jill Cirasella (Associate Librarian for Public Services and Scholarly Communication, Graduate Center) will explain the motivation for OA, describe the details of OA, and differentiate between publishing in open access journals (“gold” OA) and self-archiving works in OA repositories (“green” OA). She will also dispel persistent myths about OA and examine some of the challenges to OA.