The Open Access Week at the libraries starts October 21-25. It is an annual international celebration to raise awareness of the issue of access to published scholarly research.
According to the Online Dictionary of Library & Information Science, scholarly communication can take many forms, including books, journal articles, presentations at conferences, writing grant reports, maintaining academic web sites and communicating with peers through e-mail and discussion lists. Ideally, scholarly communication should also involve evaluation by one's peers (peer review) and preservation of the work for future users.
The publishing landscape is changing as well. New, open access, journals are being started. While some of these journals have good reputations, there are some journals that are nothing more than vanity presses; they exist to collect fees from academics who need to publish. For a good listing of reputable open access journals see the Directory of Open Access Journals. It now includes nearly 10,00 journals from 121 countries, including:
Anthropology (90 journals)
Education (630 journals)
Ethnology (34 journals)
Gender Studies (35 journals)
Library and Information Science (147 journals)
Media and communication (120 journals)
Psychology (195 journals)
Social Sciences (344 journals)
Sociology (153 journals)
Sports Science (87 journals)
You are sure to find something of value. And, if you question the validity of some particular journals, check out the list that librarian Jeff Beall has created (and predatory journals hate!) @ Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals
Here is the flyer: OA Week.1.2013.pdf
