Author: cpike

Last Summer, two new roles were created in the Library: Research Librarian for College of Health and Science, and Research Librarian for the College of Arts, Social Science and Humanities. Although support for research is offered by all Academic Subject Librarians, the creation of these two roles allows for a greater focus on – and more dedicated time for – research support and services.  

The first six months have focused on gaining an understanding of the research happening in our respective Colleges and getting to know and make contact with researchers across the institution, as well as colleagues in R&E and research librarians at other libraries across the UK. We have been attending our respective College Research Committee meetings, which has allowed us to stay updated with the latest developments and meet the Directors of Research of the College and Schools we support.  

Our first major project was to produce a support guide for researchers on the Library website. This guide covers a number of areas including open access and open research, research data management, copyright, research metrics and systematic reviews, as well as a section dedicated to postgraduate research students. We have also organised a series of webinars delivered through the Research Postgraduate Development Programme and the Academic Staff Development Programme, covering topics such as reference management software and systematic reviews. Our goal is to add new topics to the programme in 2025/26. 

One part of the role that we are both passionate about is advocating for open access and open research. As part of International Open Access Week (21^st-27^th October 2024) we launched this scholarly communications blog with Jade King and Charlotte Mitchell (Research Repository and Research Data Officers) which included several posts on open access, as well as delivering webinars open to everyone in the University. It was great to see a range of both students and academics attending. We are hoping to organise more University-wide events in the future advocating both open access and open research. We have also had the opportunity to contribute to the development of relevant policy documents, most recently updating the University Open Access policy to include Rights Retention.   

We are both enjoying the great variety of tasks the role offers, from supporting individuals, and designing and delivering webinars, through to having more strategic input, such as policy development. Looking ahead, we are excited to continue expanding our support for researchers, fostering a culture of open research and contributing to the ongoing success of our academic community. 

Claire Pike and Stephen Macdonald

Open Access (OA) refers to the practice of making scholarly research freely available online. This approach allows research outputs, including journal articles and books, to be accessed, downloaded, shared, printed, and used without any financial, legal, or technical restrictions. The primary goal of OA is to eliminate the paywalls that restrict access to academic research, thereby democratising knowledge and fostering greater collaboration and innovation across disciplines and sectors. 

International Open Access Week is an annual global event which aims to promote and celebrate OA. When looking into the history of the event, I was surprised to find out that its origins date back to 2007 when a single day event was organised in the US by Students for Free Culture and the Alliance for Taxpayer Access. It expanded to become a week-long event, celebrated globally, and from 2012, themes for the week have been selected, including ‘Open for Collaboration’ (2015), ‘Open For Whom: Equity in Open Knowledge’ (2019) and ‘Open for Climate Justice’ (2022). This year’s theme will be ‘Community over Commercialisation’, in growing recognition of the need to prioritise approaches to open scholarship that best serve the interests of both the public and the academic community.

Many institutions mark International Open Access Week by organising events and activities, including workshops, webinars and round tables, which aim to raise awareness and explore different aspects of OA such as open data and the beneficial impacts of OA. Alternatively some people bake OA cakes! Organisations and institutions have also used this time to announce new OA policies or initiatives associated with OA. For example, during OA week back in 2011 the Royal Society announced that they would release the digitised backfiles (from 1665-1941) of their archives. It was also this time last year that our new repository at Lincoln was launched.

There are a number of events being held across the globe to celebrate this year’s theme, ‘Community over Commercialisation’, many of which are online and open to all to take part in. You can keep up-to-date on social media by using the official hastag #OAweek. We are also celebrating International Open Access Week here at the University of Lincoln. Building on the success of last year’s Open Access poster conference organised by Research and Enterprise, the department will be holding an Open Access Showcase. Entries will be displayed in the Freezone, UL001, located at the front of the University Library, from Monday 21 October. Please do come along to find out more about OA practices across our institution or to chat to the Repository Team during their drop-in session on Wednesday 23 October, between 11:30 and 4:30! There will also be some online webinars which will explore different aspects of OA, and keep an eye on the blog pages too for more posts on Open Access. Maybe you could mark International Open Access Week by coming along to one of the events of even baking a cake!