Research Unbound through Open Access

Mason Celebrates International Open Access Week, October 24-30

If you think that publishing and economics have nothing to do with you, think again. All who conduct research– of any sort, at any level– have been directly or indirectly affected by the exorbitant costs of subscription-based scholarly journals. Perhaps you once discovered a source that perfectly met your research needs, but your library did not subscribe to the journal that contained the full-text article. How frustrating! This stymies rather than encourages research.

Many journal subscriptions cost more than $10,000 a year, making it impossible for educational institutions, among others, to provide their researchers with all the materials they need.[1] As the sole point of access, publishers enjoy remarkable profit margins. For example, from 2007 to 2008 Elsevier made a profit margin of approximately 31%, compared to Starbucks’ 10%.[2] The paradox--as sharing information becomes easier, access to that information is increasingly limited.

What is the solution? Open access to scholarship.

The open access movement is a global initiative promoting the free, immediate availability of scholarship and research data via the Internet.[3] To find out more, please join George Mason University Libraries for Research Unbound through Open Access, a panel discussion on publishing in open access journals and other web-based venues, and some economic aspects associated with these publishing models.

Featured speakers on the panel are: Dr. Omar Al-Ubaydli, Assistant Professor of Economics at Mason; Dr. Daniel Cohen, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at Mason; Robert Schatz, MLS, North American Sales Manager for BioMed Central, the Open Access Publisher; and Dr. Joseph Serene, Treasurer/Publisher for the American Physical Society.

The event will take place on Wednesday, October 26, on the Fairfax campus in Research Hall, room 163, from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. A lively Q&A will accompany the discussion. Light refreshments will be provided.

[1] “The Problem,” The Right to Research Coalition, last accessed October 7, 2011, http://www.righttoresearch.org/learn/problem/index.shtml.

[2] “The Problem,” The Right to Research Coalition, last accessed October 7, 2011, http://www.righttoresearch.org/learn/problem/index.shtml.

[3] “Why Open Access,” SPARC, The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition,

last accessed October 7, 2011, http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/why-oa.shtml.