“Why Open Access Matters for the Arts.” ACRL Arts Discussion Forum, ALA Annual Conference, Chicago, IL. June, 2013.

1. Why Open Access Matters for the Arts
Alex Watkins
Art & Architecture Librarian
CU Boulder Libraries

2. Open Access Definition
“By ‘open access’ to this [scholarly] literature, we
mean its free availability on the public internet,
permitting any users to read, download, copy,
distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of
these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as
data to software, or use them for any other lawful
purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers
other than those inseparable from gaining access to
the internet itself.”
Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002)

3. Open Access is usually associated
with the sciences

4. Journal
Prices

5. If there’s no journal crisis, do we need
open access?

6. Taxpayer funding of research has been key in Open
Access

7. Does Art scholarship have the same ethical
imperative to be open as medical literature?

8. Do the Arts need Open
Access?

9. Pay-walls create a divide between
Western scholars and the rest of
the world

10. Universities around the
world can’t afford
access to arts journals

11. In many places,
open access is the only access

12. “Today, Northern scholars writing
on African countries do not need to
worry about what their African
colleagues think or say, especially
if the latter are based on the
continent, because they are
unlikely to review their work”
(Zeleza, 2008).

13. We have to question what is adequate
dissemination of scholarship

14. Lack of indexing disadvantages open
access publishing

15. Open Access can help change the colonial
nature of scholarship

16. Pay Walls create a divide between
Academia and the Public

17. Scholarship can give the public a deeper
understanding of the arts

18. Librarians can help tear down
pay-walls

19. Librarians can ensure open access
resources are visible and accessible

20. Librarians
can create
and
promote
Institutional
Repositories

21. “Everyone has the right…to seek,
receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers.”
Article 19, The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

22. Photo Credits
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Barber, Matt. Great Wall of China, October 21, 2009.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/matt512/4065627169/.
Gao, Jialiang. The old Campus of the National University of San Antonio Abad
at Cusco, Peru, January, 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Universidad_Nacional_de_San_Antonio_Abad_
del_Cusco_Peru.jpg
Hough, Josh. Bethlehem Checkpoint, December 13, 2006.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshhough/321999050/.
Ammon. Berlin Wall, January 1, 1990.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/authenticfoto/3545761886/.
Thiémard, Raphaël. Berlin 1989, Fall Der Mauer, Chute Du Mur, November 1, 1989.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vivaopictures/3403855791/.
Warman, Lara. Wall Adam Goldsworthy, November 13, 2011.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/war_man/6344808703/.
Archives, SDASM. Crumbling Wall, May 23, 2012.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/7304576046/.
Poggi, Jacqueline. Hadrian’s Wall, September 8, 2008.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jacqueline_poggi/6987537325/.
SMU Central University Libraries. Sinclair Refining Laboratory... at Corpus Christi,
January 1, 1944.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smu_cul_digitalcollections/8409510090/.

23. Bibliography
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Association of Research Libraries (ARL). (2010). Tempe Principles for Emerging Systems of
Scholarly Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/tempe/index.shtml
Budhapest Open Access Inititive (BOAI). (2010). Budapest Open Access Initiative. Retrieved
from www.soros.org/openaccess/
Bailey, C. W. (2008). Author's Rights, Tout de Suite. Retrieved from from
http://www.digitalscholarship.org/ts/authorrights.pdf
Elkins, J. (2007a). Is Art History Global? London: Routledge.
Elkins, J. (2007b). Canon and Globalization in Art History. In Bryzski, A (Ed.), Partisan Canons.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Evans, S., Thompson, H., & Watkins, A. (2011). Discovering open access art history: a
comparative study of the indexing of open access art journals. The Serials Librarian, 61(2),
168–188.
McGill, L. (2006, September 22). The State of Scholarly Publishing in the History of Art and
Architecture. Retrieved from the Connexions Web site http://cnx.org/content/col10377/1.2/
Science Commons. (2010). Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine. Retrieved from
http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/
Suber, P. (2004). Promoting Open Access in the Humanities. Retrieved from
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/apa.htm
Van Orsdel, L. C., Born, K. (2009 April 15). Reality bites: Periodicals price survey 2009. Library
Journal. Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6651248.html
Willinsky, J. (2006). The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and
Scholarship. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Zeleza, P. (2008). Challenges in the Production and Globalization of African Knowledges.
Retrieved from http://www.zeleza.com/blogging/african-affairs/challenges-productionandglobalization-african-knowledges-0