In the Concordia Journal, an enthusiastic write-up about Harnad’s recent talk on Open Access self-archiving.

Increasing the impact of the academy

William Curran, head of Concordia’s Library, said in an email that “the whole philosophy and pedagogical role of the library ‘business’ is to provide access, i.e., open access to the compendium of the world’s knowledge.” He anticipates that Concordia will have an institutional repository within the year for, at minimum, completed theses and research papers, “which represent the intellectual output of the university.”

As Harnad himself noted in an email, this write-up doesn’t mention that he was invited by our department (Sociology and Anthropology) nor does it describe the mixed reception to several of Harnad’s points. It does, however, address the fact that some academics are wary of Open Access, often because they associate it with potential revenue loss for journal publishers.

My own take is that Open Access is not only a necessity but mostly a step in the overall process of reevaluating academic publishing.