1. Open Access Week
An Open Access Week letter from SPARC
The largest, most successful International Open Access Week yet has just come to a
close. With just under 900 participants in 94 countries, this year’s event was no less
than three times larger than it was just a year ago. Hundreds of videos, photos, blog
posts, and more were released to promote and highlight the benefits of Open Access to
research and take the conversation even more deeply into the research community – and
they absolutely did.
We could celebrate the week as a success in numbers like these alone, but the numbers
really only tell part of the story.
The increase in diversity of participants is even more telling. Started as a student-driven
event in 2007 with support from SPARC and the library community, Open Access Day
was at first a library-centric affair. Having grown in recognition and participation every
year since, in 2010 we truly began to make deep inroads into the academy.
The student stake in the conversation on access continues to grow more firm, but this
year participants from the academy – including humanists, climate change scientists,
provosts, research funders, Nobelists, and lawyers – really took advantage of the
occasion to share their insights on how Open Access has had an impact on their work
and lives.
Nobel prize-winning scientist and director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute Dr.
Harold Varmus participated in the official OA Week kick-off event, saying, with respect
to where open-access publishing has reached and what’s now possible: “All of these
adventures are tremendously exciting because they markedly enrich the experience of
being a scientist, of reading the work of others, and of exchanging views with others in
the scientific community.” Dr. Varmus’s comments are online at
http://vimeo.com/15881200.
In his video, Dr. Nico Sommerdijk, associate professor of Chemical Engineering and
Chemistry at the Dutch Eindhoven University of Technology, expresses a need for
moving beyond traditional publishing approaches to share data. He made his research
data openly available so that now, “Everybody can access [the data set] directly with
one click of your computer mouse. People may use the same data set for things that we
were not looking for and so generate new science with the same scientific data set.”
(http://www.openaccessweek.org/video/open-access-of-data-generates)
The stories that were shared are inspiring, but so was the creativity of the delivery.
In Portugal, the Polytechnic Institute of Santarém held a portion of their Open Access
Week program in Second Life.
(http://www.openaccessweek.org/xn/detail/5385115:Event:9662?xg_source=activity)
Students at Boston University made a video to illustrate that studying without access to
the resources you need is like having half a sock to wear, half a hotdog to eat, or half a
book to read (http://www.openaccessweek.org/video/open-access).

2. And, in Open Families (http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/openfamilies), scientists
relate in personal and compelling terms how Open Access to the research and data they
produce, as well as that produced by others, is not just a professional cause for them but
a family affair.
All these contributions to the conversation – in writing, photo, and video – are a
fantastic resource that will help us all to continue the conversation over the course of the
year and beyond, and are a sure sign of the growing momentum behind Open Access
Week. Of course, the growing size and power of the global network also continues to
impress.
Open Access Week 2010 was also a great reminder to us of the work and opportunities
that lie ahead. We’ve isolated a need to dig deeper into the academy and find ways to
meet faculty on their own terms – to find ways to bring Open Access Week, so to speak,
to campus every day of the year. While we’ve made crucial advances, we’ve only just
started to make the inroads needed to engage the community of scholars and
researchers.
We’ve made fantastic progress, with awareness-raising around Week and with
advancing Open Access as a new norm in scholarship. Congratulations to every single
person who worked so hard to ensure the success of the event – locally, regionally,
nationally, and globally. And, thank you.
SPARC also extends special thanks to the members of the 2010 Open Access Week
program advisers (http://www.openaccessweek.org/group/programadvisers), SPARC
members (http://www.arl.org/sparc/member), and everyone we’ve had the pleasure in
working with this year. Thank you.
Naturally, there’s more to come. Watch for more OA Week round-up materials from
SPARC, including more videos, throughout the week. And, course, there’s Open Access
Week 2011 to look forward to! We'll look forward to seeing you at
www.openaccessweek.org then.
Warm wishes,
Heather Joseph, Executive Director
Jennifer McLennan, Program Director for Open Access Week
On behalf of the 2010 Open Access Week Program Advisers