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In 2007 IUPUI University Library partnered with the IUPUI Graduate Office to begin providing open access to students’ theses and dissertations.  In our promotional activities we focused on the benefits to students.  Their scholarship is:

Spring is in the air in Indianapolis, a perfect time to turn our attention to the exciting changes in wildlife that this time of year brings.  And, with spring comes the annual influx of migratory birds.  Amazingly, some of these bird species return to our state from tropical wintering grounds as far away as the South American continent. 

The first quarter of this year has been a good one for IUPUIScholarWorks. While upgrading our version of DSpace, we also rebuilt our community list on the home page. Currently, thirteen IUPUI schools have collections in ScholarWorks. (We hope that the few remaining schools will create collections before the end of the year.) While making improvements to the website, we were also busy posting new submissions to the repository. Here's what's new in IUPUIScholarWorks for the first quarter of 2014:

Admittedly, I spend more time thinking about project management than I would like, sometimes to the detriment of actually getting stuff done. On the other hand, I have realized that the processing through the organizational issues helps me to map out and articulate what it will take to complete a particular project. Since I've found the workflows and tools posts from other professionals helpful, I'll share my approach and hope that this helps someone else besides me.

Many scholars and librarians support public access to research publications funded by U.S. taxpayers. It's hard to argue with the idea that the people who paid for this research have a right to read the results without having to pay a third party (often a commercial publisher) for access. But, in making the case for open access to research published by faculty working at a public university, I sometimes meet supporters of public access that assume the access problem has been solved by federal policy. Reader, we have a problem.

A couple of interesting developments have occurred in the world of open access scientific publishing in the last few weeks.  Two major scientific societies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Royal Society, have both announced plans to publish open access journals.  The AAAS plans to debut their new open access journal, Science Advances, in 2015 while the Royal Society‘s new open access journal,

The Beginnings

In Spring 2013 a survey was sent to organizations in Indiana that were known to already be creating digital collections related to Indiana history.  Responding were libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives.  The overwhelming feedback indicates that Indiana cultural heritage institutions are highly interested in continuing to talk about a Digital Public Library of America Service Hub in Indiana.

What is DPLA?

Recently I've noticed a tendency in my prose to capitalize the words "Open Access." Somehow my mind turned a concept into a brand. I had some help, of course. For a shorthand, many that write about open access use the initialism "OA." It's easy to see how that might introduce capitalization when it comes time to spell out both words--so, "open access" becomes "OA" which is reborn as "Open Access." And, then, many fine OA advocates have worked to make Open Access a brand. With manifestos, conferences, books, and the ever present icon, Open Access is a brand--and that's a good thing too.