Welcome to Open Access Week (October 19-23, 2009). Open access is a philosophy that I am passionate about. While I have had the privilege of access to Canada’s largest libraries (the Toronto Public Library – the largest public library in the country and the University of Toronto, the largest Canadian library by number of items), not all have that access. As a high school student, accessing resources in research libraries was a difficult task that few pursued (one could borrow items from the local University library but for each borrow request, I had to get a letter from the high school librarian vouching for me).
Now, you can have a look at the Directory of Open Access Journals and find articles from a variety of fields. The physical and medical sciences have embraced the principles of open access to the greatest degree, but there are other disciplines as well. I hope this trend continues and that more researchers see fit to contribute to it. One question that open access advocates do not seem to consider is how the open access movement impacts those industries that depend on intellectual property (e.g. movies, film, pharmaceuticals, software, engineering, law, investment and the rest of the creative economy) protections. Figuring out a way to balance the open access ethic with the legitimate desire of creators to profit from their work has long been a thorny question in copyright. Part of the value of open access lies in rebalancing the debate more evenly.
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