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This article explores the current Library and Information Science (LIS) literature on open access and self-archiving and related studies and introduces the key concepts, different ways to self-archive, and approaches and findings on these studies. It further investigates the open access and self-archiving practices in disciplinary studies and the disciplinary differences among these practices. Finally, it examines self-archiving in law and concludes that the research gap and lack of literature on self-archiving in the discipline of law makes this study worthwhile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores a set of existential risks that accompany digital storage capacities, devices, and promises: the anxious exhaustion of digital housekeeping; the disorientation of self-archiving; and the annihilating sense of loss that strikes when digital containment fails. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study seeks to explore institutional repository, social networking, and bibliographic databases of scholarly communication in Nigeria. Six institutional repositories (IR) were selected and five leading authors had their works manually crosschecked in two citation indexes and self-archived in social networking sites. The results reveal that faculty members have embraced self-archive on academic social network platforms, while their records in the IR do not reflect this. The study recommends Universities' management to implore academics to self-archive their publications into their IR, while the libraries too could search bibliographic databases and social network sites to update their respective IR platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European-based SHERPA (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access) services are a suite of free scholarly communication resources aimed at proving authors information on publisher’s open access policies. SHERPA’s most notable service is RoMEO, is a database aggregating publisher archiving policies which allows researchers quick access to copyright and self-archiving policies of more than 23,000 global publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The extent to which scholarly literature can be openly accessed and freely downloaded on the Internet varies greatly depending on the discipline. This article assesses the current state of open access in the fields of business and management. Google was used to search for free versions of articles from a sample of articles published in early 2009 in a broad array of business and management journals. Free versions of 36% of the articles included in this study were identified, available from a wide variety of websites, including repositories, author profile pages, open access journals, and more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the awareness of scholarly authors toward open access repositories and the factors that motivate their use of these repositories. The article reports on the findings obtained from a mixed methods approach which involved a questionnaire returned by over 3000 respondents, supplemented by four focus groups held across Europe in the summer 2009. The research found that although there was a good understanding and appreciation of the ethos of open access in general, there were clear differences between scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds in their understanding of open access repositories and their motivations for depositing articles within them. This research forms the first part of a longitudinal study that will track the changing behaviors and attitudes of authors toward open access repositories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of two complementary surveys undertaken in 2008 as part of a wider project investigating the effects and impact of open access to research outputs in the UK. The institutional view, from a survey of academic librarians, is compared to researchers' perceptions and practices. Researchers were largely unaware of their institutions' policies with regard to open access, or whether they had an institutional repository. Reasons for making research outputs available on open access, or not doing so, were sought, and the role of open access material as a research resource investigated. The surveys found that many researchers maintained a suspicion of open access publications, both as authors and as users of scholarly material, together with a degree of ignorance about open access and the role of institutional repositories. This suggests that a degree of culture change may be needed, as institutions develop repositories with a view to future research assessment requirements, and more funders adopt open access mandates for the outputs from research which they fund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of open access (OA) has followed many different routes, including green OA, with authors depositing their own research in institutional and subject repositories. This column takes a look at new developments in green OA. Some institutions have announced recent successes with their repositories following the implementation of OA mandates and automated harvesting of faculty publications. Despite these success stories, critics have noted problems with organizing these services at the institution level. This column also examines developments in subject repositories and the possibility of institutional cooperation in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, the Scott Memorial Library at Thomas Jefferson University started an institutional repository (IR), the Jefferson Digital Commons (JDC) . Originally intended as a showcase for faculty scholarship, it has evolved to serve also as a university press for original journals and newsletters, and as an institutional archive. Many lessons have been learned about marketing techniques, common IR issues, and advantages of an IR for a library. IR recruitment has come to be viewed as yet another form of collection development and has been integrated into all forms of the Library's outreach. Jefferson's academic health sciences environment has proven similar to other academic environments on issues of acceptance and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter examines the major open access movement statements, analyzes the open access concept based on these statements, examines the two major open access strategies (self-archiving and open access journals), discusses the rationale behind the open access movement, discusses the impact of open access on libraries, looks at open access funding issues, and considers whether open access will transform electronic resources librarians jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Open Access movement seeks to make scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles freely available to anyone, anywhere over the World Wide Web. There were some very significant developments in the area of Open Access in 2004, including statements by major fund donors in support of Open Access. There are now so many Open Access scholarly journal articles available, that using the resources and related tools is essential for libraries. Libraries can provide more and faster resources for users by supplementing paid resources with Open Access resources. Library resources, such as software that fixes links, commonly named resolvers, are beginning to incorporate Open Access materials and Web searches for Open Access materials. After exhausting traditional resources, interlibrary loan staff members are beginning to include Google searching in their workflow. This article will discuss what Open Access is, the dramatic growth of Open Access, major collections, resources and tools. The article will explore the implications, issues, and leadership opportunities for resource sharing specialists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholarly communication system is in a critical stage, due to a number of factors. The Open Access movement is perhaps the most interesting response that the scientific community has tried to give to this problem. The paper examines strengths and weaknesses of the Open Access strategy in general and, more specifically, of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI), discussing experiences, criticisms and barriers. All authors that have faced the problems of implementing an OAI compliant e-print server agree that technical and practical problems are not the most difficult to overcome and that the real problem is the change in cultural attitude required. In this scenario, the university library is possibly the standard bearer for the advent and implementation of e-prints archives and Open Archives services. To ensure the successful implementation of this service the Library has a number of distinct roles to play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]