Friday, October 10, 2008

Open Access Day at Duke

Open Access (OA) is a growing international movement that uses the Internet to throw open the locked doors that once hid knowledge. It encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society.

Tuesday, October 14 marks the first international Open Access Day, which aims to broaden awareness of the OA movement through educational events around the world. The Duke Libraries will host two events on Tuesday, October 14, the first of which includes discussion by two Duke Law faculty members:

Duke Talks about Open Access
2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Perkins Library (Room 217)
Featuring James Boyle, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law, Chairman of the Board, Creative Commons.
Professor Boyle will focus on Creative Commons, an organization which is working to facilitate the free availability of art, scholarly and creative materials through online licenses that authors can attach to their work.

His talk will be followed by a panel of speakers from the Duke community who will share their perspectives and their activities within the Open Access arena:
  • Melanie Dunshee, JD, AMLS, Assistant Dean for Library Services, Duke Law Library
  • Ricardo Pietrobon, MD, PhD, MBA, Associate Vice Chair and Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery Duke University Health System
  • Josh Sommer, fellow in Duke’s Program on Global Health and Technology Access, co-founder Chordoma Foundation


Open Access Webcast
7-8 p.m., Perkins Link and/or Medical Center Library (Room 104)
The international Open Access Day Webcast features:
  • Sir Richard Roberts, Nobel laureate, Chief Scientific Officer at New England Biolabs, US, and a member of the PLoS Biology Editorial Board
  • Philip E. Bourne, Ph.D. founding editor-in-chief of PLoS Computational Biology, Professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the UC San Diego, Assoc. Dir. of the RCSB Protein Data Bank, Senior Advisor to the San Diego Supercomputer Center, Adjunct Professor at the Burnham Institute, and Co-Founder of SciVee
Both speakers will discuss how Open Access impacts research and will answer questions on this topic from participating campuses.

Throughout the day on October 14, the Duke University Libraries will feature short video clips on open access, provide handouts about author rights, access to research, and copyright available, and distribute OA Day buttons. The Law Library will provide a handout on Open Access initiatives at Duke Law, as well as sample contract language to preserve author's rights to redistribute published works.

For more information on Open Access Day, visit the Facebook events page for Open Access Day @ Duke University or http://openaccessday.org/.