Session: Friday, October 23,
Room 1A Library East, 10-11:30 AM

Open Access@ UF

Drawing on the knowledge of Open Access from the university community, this panel represents several of the stakeholders that have an interest in and are affected by the Open Access initiative. We have asked the panel members to share their perspectives on the issues presenting what they view as pros and/or cons of expanding access to publicly funded research. Many of the speakers from previous sessions will be available to add their perspectives. The last half hour is intended to be an open exchange of questions and comments from the audience.

Researcher: Dr. Thomas Walker, Emeritus Professor, Entomology Dr. Walker received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1957. His research areas are ecology, systematics, and behavior, especially of crickets, katydids, and migrating butterflies. Always on the leading edge of information technology, Dr. Walker pushed the UF libraries to get the first CD of Agricola in the late 1970s, went on to transform the Florida Entomologist into an open access journal in 1994, and later negotiated for it to become the first open access journal included in BioOne. Dr. Walker will discuss why open access is important to researchers and its impact on citation rates.
Open Access Mandate Proposal (Link opens Power Point presentation)

Library Director: Wallace McLendon, Health Science Center Library As the former Deputy Director at UNC-CH Health Sciences Library, Mr. McLendon served on numerous state and university committees related to scholarly communication and digital technologies including Carolina 's Steering Committee on Scholarly Communication; the F aculty Information Technology Advisory Committee; and the campus Digitization, Curation, and Institutional Repositories Committee. Mr. McLendon is extremely knowledgeable about the impact the National Institutes of Health (NIH) public access policy has had on scholarly communications, research, and health care. He is equally well versed in emerging technologies and their impact on health-related information access. Mr. McLendon will discuss the present and future relationships between libraries, the Open Access movement and the information seeker.

Student: Patrick Flanagan, Officer from Florida Free Culture Students for Free Culture is an international student organization dedicated to promoting “the public interest in intellectual property and information & communications technology policy.” (freeculture.org) Free Culture’s current national campaign involves promoting an Open University where open access to information is key. A representative from UF’s local Florida Free Culture chapter will discuss why having free access to scholarly materials is essential for students.