1. Librarians as agents for social
change, community development
and democracy
An Open Access Perspective
Ina Smith
Open Scholarship Manager
Stellenbosch University
4 June 2014

2. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001929/192971e.pdf

3. VS
What is Open Access?
http://www.growingyourbaby.com/2013/09/05/new-global-index-exposes-gaps-in-health-care-between-rich-and-poor/

4. What is Open Access?
“By Open Access, we mean the free, immediate,
availability on the public Internet of those works
which scholars give to the world without
expectation of payment – permitting any user to
read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or
link to the full text of these articles, crawl them
for indexing, pass them as data to software or
use them for any other lawful purpose.”
Source: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa

7. OA as used by public

8. Educators and students around the world contribute
to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects for class
assignments

9. SUNScholar – Impact – Example
Research Article, Dept. of Animal Sciences (2013) –
hot topic
A high incidence of species substitution and
mislabelling detected in meat products sold in
South Africa/Cawthorn, Donna-Maree Steinman,
Harris A. Hoffman, Louwrens C.
Subscription article (Elsevier):
Cawthorn, D-M., Steinman, H.A., & Hoffman, L.C. 2013. A high incidence of
species substitution and mislabelling detected in meat products sold in
South Africa. Food Control, 32(2),
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2013.01.008.

10. Open Access Copy Downloads (27 February 2013
- )
12 November 2013 984
13 May 2014 1 534
SUNScholar – Impact – Example (cont.):
Sparked dialogue (also on social media), investigations, additional
reviews of article …..
We want to encourage dialogue and have results scrutinised –
along scientific principles.

12. SUNJournals – Impact – Examples:
Two highly specialised journals:
South African Journal of Libraries and Information
Sciences
Scientia Militaria

13. Since SAJLIS has gone OA & online …
• Increase in usage & visibility (also
international)
• Increase in submission of papers
• Reduced costs – minimal expenses (profit)
• Retrospective issues also to be published
online – digitisation process
• Next: Thomson Reuters Impact Factor

14. SAJLIS Statistics
• Top downloaded article: Personal knowledge
management: the foundation of organisational knowledge
management/P Jain, Vol 77, No 1 (2011)
1 315 downloads
• 107 articles (2002 (vol. 68) – 2013 (vol. 79))
• 26 887 downloads in total
• 266 users enrolled

15. Scientia Militaria – top downloaded
article
Vol. 20 no. 2 (1990)
Downloads: 4 681
DOI (Usage tracked via
Crossref)
Article Metrics
Finding References
Social Media

16. Scientia Militaria – Finding References

17. Educational Institutions
• Contributes to core mission of advancing knowledge
• Democratizes access across all institutions – regardless of
size or budget
• Provides previously unattainable access to community
colleges, universities and schools
• Provides access to crucial STEM materials
• Increases competitiveness of academic institutions
• Students
• Enriches the quality of their education
• Ensures access to all that students need to know, rather
what they (or their school) can afford
• Contributes to a better-educated workforce
Source: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa

18. Businesses
• Access to cutting-edge research encourages
innovation
• Stimulates new ideas, new services, new
products
• Creates new opportunities for job creation
Source: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa

19. Public
• Provides access to previously unavailable
materials relating to health, energy,
environment, and other areas of broad
interest
• Creates better educated populace
• Encourages support of scientific enterprise
and engagement in citizen science
Source: http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/open-access/why-oa

20. What can public (incl. school)
libraries do?
• Open Access Week 20-26 October 2014
http://www.openaccessweek.org/
• Partner with an academic library
• Support and develop OERs in collaboration with school
libraries
• Find existing projects on the WWW
• Create an awareness amongst patrons – use of Open
Access resources (dictionaries, encyclopedias etc)
• Open textbooks in schools
• Use and support Open Source! OpenOffice, Ubuntu

21. Let’s work towards a better and equal
future and life for all!
http://www.educationnews.org/international-uk/private-school-enrollments-growing-in-south-africa-as-poor-enroll/