Refocusing Open Access Marketing and Education Efforts in Response to Local Perceptions

Open access to authoritative research is vital to the development of an informed society and integral to the mission of many academic libraries. But high article publishing charges, unscrupulous publishers, and misunderstandings about what exactly “open access” means can poison the well, turning a library’s users against the entire philosophy. In this presentation, we seek to start a conversation with our colleagues about the term “open access” and possible alternatives. The presenters will delve into the definitions of each term, explain why “open access” might be problematic, weigh the pros and cons of rebranding their team’s services, discuss how a rebrand would affect efforts to serve their university’s mission; and solicit suggestions on how best to educate researchers on what “open access” really means.