About Open Access

In serials and scholarly communication, information is often locked up in subscription journals and databases. The price to access these journals and databases continues to rise, but library and university budgets continue to stagnate or decrease. Despite budget constraints, universities and libraries are forced to pay for the creation of research and to buy it back through subscriptions.

Open access is an answer to this issue: it democratizes knowledge by making information free, unrestricted, and online. Open-access publishing, particularly of scholarly communication in academia, is carried out largely through digital and institutional repositories. Research (including peer-reviewed journals) is posted online for anyone to access. These repositories are indexed by Google and other search engines, increasing visibility and impact of the research.