What is Open Access?

Open access (OA) is a principle by which scholarly content is made available online free of charge and with minimal copyright and licensing restriction. Western Libraries fully supports the open access movement and encourages researchers to investigate open access publications as possible venues for their work.

For more information on Open Access, take a look at Peter Suber's book, "Open Access".

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Directories

Use the tools below to search for Open Access Repositories, Journals, or Books. Use Sherpa Romeo and Juliet for information on publisher copyright policies, and funder open access requirements respectively.

Directories for Open Access Resources

Directories for Publisher and Funder Policy Information

OA Advocacy Groups

  • Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition – SPARC
    An international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication.
  • Open Knowledge Foundation
    Open Knowledge is a worldwide non-profit network of people passionate about openness, using advocacy, technology and training to unlock information and enable people to work with it to create and share knowledge.
  • Right to Research Coalition
    Promotes open scholarly publishing based on the belief that no student should be denied access to the articles they need because their institution cannot afford the often high cost of access.
  • CRKN Institutional Mobilization Toolkit
  • Open Depot
    The purpose of OpenDepot.org is to ensure that all academics worldwide can share in the benefits of making their research output Open Access.