Librarians and libraries supporting Open Access publishing

This article examines the role of libraries and librarians in developing and supporting open access publishing initiatives and services in higher education. It reflect the experiences of three librarians involved in the open access movement at their libraries, within Canadian Library Association, and as creators, managers, and editors in two open access journals in the field of library and information studies; Evidence-based library and information practice published form University of Alberta; and Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research hosted by the university of Guelph. Open access publishing is the best option to tackle the price hike of journals in the libraries. There was a dramatic growth by 180% in serial unit cost and 321% in serial expenditure in the past 20 years. Many universities in Canada support their scientist and researchers by allocating Open Access Authors Fund to publish their research output. University of Calgary uses its library budget for this purpose. Similar funds are in place in research libraries in US and Europe. There are 11 academic library publishing services in Canada and it was expected that over 50 journal should either be created or migrated to online with the assistance of university libraries using OJS or Erudit, journal management software.  

For more detail read:

Richard, J., Koufogiannakis, D., & Ryan, P (2009). Librarians and libraries supporting Open Access publishing. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 39 (3) pp 33-48.