Association of Research Librarians says "open access is inevitable"

A panel discussion at a Washington D.C. meeting of the Association of Research Librarians says that free, public access to research is inevitable. 

I now believe that having public access to most scholarly communications is inevitable," said David Shulenburger, vice president for academic affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. "Faculty are coming to understand, finally, that this has to happen if they're going to have the most scholarly opportunities to get things done."

Still, many scholars need the hard sell from colleagues and librarians about the benefits of open access. Lorraine J. Haricombe, dean of the University of Kansas Libraries, described the "foot soldiering" and outreach that had to be done before Kansas's faculty passed an open-access resolution earlier this year. It required some "very, very challenging conversations" with scholars worried about peer review and copyright issues, Ms. Haricombe said.

While the statements from ARL relate to the hard sciences, query whether the same might be said about the inevitability of free public access to legal databases now that Google Scholar is here to lead the way.

You can read more about the ARL conference via the Chronicle of Higher Ed, here.

(jbl)