Today, October 24th, the MBLWHOI Library of the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution held a general Open Access discussion involving divergent points of view...and we all had some cake to celebrate the day as well!

Let them eat cake!

The discussion was let by 2 scientists and one editor of our in house journal...and attended by about 20 members of the Woods Hole scientific community.

What we all agreed is that the world is changing, dramatically, and while open access holds much promise and is a good thing, the practice of and dissemination of science must not be compromised by an unclear open access mission. Scientists need to know their work is not compromised...we handed out copies of Beall's Predatory List...which everyone found to be a helpful tool, as well as many other open access resources. Librarians may see the benefits of open access clearly, and we must be there for the communities we serve to understand that their needs must be satisfied as well.

We had a positive event!