Open Access Initiatives—A Resource Guide
Online scholarly research available for free or at a reduced cost.
 
While the definition of open access varies, it has certain defining characteristics. Open access materials are digital, online, available for free (or at a reduced cost), and exist without most copyrights restricting use. The overriding concerns of open access initiatives are to remove price (subscription fees) and permission (licensing restrictions) barriers to scholarly research.
See http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm for more information.
 
The rising cost of scholarly materials has strained library budgets and negatively affected librarians’ ability to provide continued access to research in both print and electronic format. By using and supporting open access, scholars and professors can help build a viable alternative to the commercial publishers currently dominating the dissemination of scholarly information. Researchers may also want to consider publishing in open access journals or archives. Many of these initiatives are compatible with peer-review. Open access journals such as Public Library of Science Biology are prestigious and carry high impact factors (see http://www.plos.org/news/announce_pbioif.html). For more information, consult the library liaison in your discipline at http://www.usfca.edu/library/liaisons.html .
 
What follows is a resource guide for open access materials. Since the definition of open access is not restricted to free materials, some of the resources listed, such as SPARC’s BioOne database, require a paid subscription. In this case you will not have access to the journal or database through the link provided. For a specific journal, try searching USF’s Journal Finder at http://www.usfca.edu/library/ for access. If USF has paid for this title it will show up in your search and you can access it through the Gleeson Library Databases. To determine whether USF provides access to a specific database, click on the Databases: A to Z List link. Browse the alphabetical list for databases.
 
Click here to view open access initiatives
 
 
Open access materials come in three forms:
 
  1. 1.Electronic Journals: Available online with no print counterpart. Conduct peer-review process and publish articles. Generally allow authors to retain copyright. Provide articles to the public for free or at a reduced cost. Funded by authors, author’s institution, or research funding source.
 
  1. 2.Electronic Archives: Organized by institution or discipline. Do not conduct peer-review. Contents can be post-prints (digital versions of papers that have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication); pre-prints (have not been peer-reviewed); and other materials such as theses, dissertations, and institutional records. Digital archives provide free access to scholarly materials or allow the authors to restrict access. Funded by the host institution.
 
  1. 3.Other: Miscellaneous projects involved with open access publishing.
 
 
 
  1. 1.Electronic Journals
Electronic Journals are divided into three categories. SPARC is the only project listed under collaborative initiatives. If you want to browse a directory or a multiple journal database, click on the second link. If you are looking for a specific journal or publisher, select the final entry.
 
        1. a.Collaborative Initiatives
      2. b.Directories or Multiple Journal Databases
      3. c.Single Journal or Publisher
 
 
 
1. Electronic Journals
 
a.    Collaborative Initiatives
 
      1. •SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) http://www.arl.org/sparc/partner/index.html
SPARC, an alliance of scholarly societies, academic institutions, and research libraries, was founded in 1997 in response to rising journal costs. Through its publisher partner programs, SPARC has helped initiate lower cost, peer-reviewed, scholarly publications in electronic format. Publisher Partner Programs are divided into three categories:
 
1.   The Alternative program establishes a title to compete with a specific, high-priced journal in order to make the research more affordable. For example, Organic Letters, published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), was created to compete with the expensive Tetrahedron Letters.  
 
2.   The Leading Edge program is comprised of databases made up of, for the most part, open access journals. SPARC defines open access materials as being available online, for free, immediately upon publication. For example, BioMed Central publishes research articles in biology and medicine.
 
3.  The Scientific Communities program assists in the creation of non-               profit aggregated databases of peer-reviewed, scientific research. For example, BioOne database is a collection of titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences from scholarly societies and non-commercial publishers. BioOne is available to institutions by subscription only.
 
 
1. Electronic Journals
 
  1. b.Directories or Multiple Journal Databases
 
    1. •AERA SIG Communication of Research
http://aera-cr.asu.edu/ejournals/
Open access journals in the field of education  
 
        1. •BioMed Central
          http://www.biomedcentral.com/home/
Peer-reviewed research available for free online from over 100 journals.
 
  1. •Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
http://www.doaj.org/
DOAJ contains over 2000 journal titles with free, immediate access to full-text articles. DOJA only accepts open access journals, as defined by the Budapest Open Access Initiative, granting users the right to “read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to” full-text articles. Journals must be of a scholarly nature, and comprised of peer-reviewed research. All scholarly disciplines are covered in DOJA articles, originating from academic, government, commercial, and non-profit, private sources.
 
  1. •Free Full Text
http://www.freefulltext.com/
Direct links to over 7000 scholarly periodicals which make available some or all of their full-text content for free. This Web site does not support keyword searching. It is most useful if you have a specific citation which can be located by browsing the journal title list.
 
  1. •Free Medical Journals
http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/
 
  1. •Highwire Press
 http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl
Containing over one million, free, full-text articles focusing on the life and   health sciences, Highwire Press is the largest archive of its type in the world.
Highwire Press divides articles into three categories: free back issues, free trial period (for which date ranges are specified), and free site (all articles available for free). For a list of journal designations, go to http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl . Pay-per-view sites are listed at http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/ppvsp.dtl . Note that Highwire provides free access to articles linked to from bibliographies of freely available articles (even if those articles linked to are not from otherwise freely available journals).
 
 
  1. •PubMed Central
http://www.pubmedcentral.org/
PubMed Central is a free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). It contains approximately 200,000 articles from journals, in some cases dating back to the early 1990s. Some journals make their content available immediately, whereas others may take a few months or one year.
  
 
1. Electronic Journals
 
c.    Single Journal or Publisher
 
        1. •Ariadne
          http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/
Covers topics on open access in the United Kingdom    
 
  1. •D-Lib Magazine
    http://www.dlib.org/dlib.html
Digital library journal
 
  1. •Digital Humanities Quarterly
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/
Covers all aspects of digital media in the humanities, with the premier issue coming out in March, 2006
 
    1. •High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine
http://library.cern.ch/HEPLW/
International in coverage.
 
    1. •Journal of Digital Information
http://jodi.tamu.edu/
 
  1. •Oxford Journals Open Access Publishing Model
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/
Provides open access to Nucleic Acids Research (NAR), a peer-reviewed journal of research articles on nucleic acids.
Open access also to Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, June, 2004- at, http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/
Open access to NAR through Pubmed from 1974- at, http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?action=archive&journal=4
Oxford Journals also has an optional Open Access model, which applies to journals in a wide range of disciplines. A list of these journals can be found at, http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/
Optional Open Access means that authors have the choice of paying for their articles to be published, in which case the articles will be immediately accessible online, for free
 
  1. •Public Library of Science (PLoS)
http://www.plos.org/
Publishes free, online, peer-reviewed journals, such as:
  1. 1.Biology at http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=index-html&issn=1545-7885
  2. 2.Medicine at http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=index-html&issn=1549-1676
  3. 3.Computational Biology at http://compbiol.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=index-html&issn=1553-7358
  4. 4.Genetics at http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=index-html&issn=1553-7404
  5. 5.Pathogens at http://pathogens.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=index-html&issn=1553-7374
  6. 6.Clinical Trials at http://clinicaltrials.plosjournals.org/
 
 
2.   Electronic Archives
Electronic archives are divided into three categories, institutional, disciplinary, and directories.  Institutional archives are collections of scholarly materials located at a specific institution, usually a University. Disciplinary archives are specific to a discipline, such as physics, and are arranged by discipline. The final link will take you to a list of directories of archives.
 
a. Institutional
b. Disciplinary
c. Directories
 
  
 
2.   Electronic Archives
 
a.    Institutional
 
  1. •Caltech Collection of Open Digital Archives (CODA)
http://library.caltech.edu/digital/
Includes electronic theses, technical reports, books, conference papers, and oral histories from the Caltech archives.
Caltech electronic theses and dissertations http://etd.caltech.edu/ETD-db/ETD-browse/browse?first_letter=all
    
  1. •California Digital Library (CDL)
http://www.cdlib.org/
Established in 1997 as a University of California Library, CDL is a repository for research, Web-based publications, and electronic editions of academic monographs. Much of this material is freely available to the public:
  1. 1.EScholarship, research articles from journals and academic monographs, at http://www.cdlib.org/programs/escholarship.html
  2. 2.Counting California, California government data, at http://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org/  
  3. 3.Online Archive of California, images and letters from Californian historical societies, archives, and museums, at http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ .
 
Also see the Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE, at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/
 
  1. •Digital Library and Archive, Virginia Tech University
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/
Includes electronic theses and dissertations, University archives, special collections, electronic journals, and a digital image database.
 
  1. •DSPACE
http://libraries.mit.edu/dspace-mit/
MIT's online institutional repository composed of DSPACE communities. DSPACE communities provide open access to their research in a variety of digital formats, including books, theses, computer programs, images, video and audio files, and Web pages.
For DSPACE communities at MIT go to, https://dspace.mit.edu/index.jsp
For DSPACE communities at other institutions go to, http://wiki.dspace.org/DspaceInstances
 
 
 
 
  1. •Preprint Severs and Databases
From the University of Virginia Charles L. Brown Science and Engineering Library
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/science/guides/s-preprn.htm
Directory of 35 links to pre-print archives in all areas of science and engineering. 
 
 
 
2.   Electronic Archives
 
b.   Disciplinary
 
Biology and Medical Sciences:
 
  1. •Cogprints: Cognitive Sciences E-Print Archive
http://cogprints.org/
A repository for self-archive papers in Psychology, Neuroscience, Biology, Linguistics, Computer Science, and Philosophy.
 
  1. •Highwire Press
 http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl
Containing over one million, free, full-text articles focusing on the life and   health sciences, Highwire Press is the largest archive of its type in the world.
Highwire Press divides articles into three categories: free back issues, free trial period (for which date ranges are specified), and free site (all articles available for free). For a list of journal designations, go to http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl . Pay-per-view sites are listed at http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/ppvsp.dtl . Note that Highwire provides free access to articles linked to from bibliographies of freely available articles (even if those articles linked to are not from otherwise freely available journals).
 
  1. •National Science Digital Library (NSDL)
http://nsdl.org/
NSDL contains images, video, datasets, journal articles, and lesson plans for scholars and educators in the fields of Education, Health, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and Technology. It has search and browse capabilities, “Ask-An-Expert” resource, newsletters, and online discussion forums.  All NSDL resources are free, though the site often links out to other organizations, which may require fee-based membership for access.
See the section on resources for University Faculty at http://nsdl.org/resources_for/university_faculty/index.php
Includes teaching resources and peer-reviewed articles.
 
  1. •PubMed Central
http://www.pubmedcentral.org/
PubMed Central is a free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). It contains about 200,000 articles from journals, in some cases dating back to the early 1990s. Some journals make their content available immediately, whereas others may take a few months or one year.
 
 
 
Physics and Engineering:
 
  1. •arXive
http://www.arXiv.org/
Cornell University hosts arXive, a digital archive of over 350,000 electronic preprints of papers in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, and quantitative biology.
 
  1. •CERN Document Server
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/?ln=en
360,000 full-text documents in particle physics and related areas. Includes conference proceedings, pre-prints, articles, books, journals, photographs, videos, talks, and lectures.
 
  1. •NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
http://adswww.harvard.edu/
ADS is comprised of three databases, funded by NASA. It contains 4.6 million bibliographic records in Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Physics.
 
  1. •Preprint Severs and Databases
From the University of Virginia Charles L. Brown Science and Engineering Library
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/science/guides/s-preprn.htm
Directory of 35 links to pre-print archives in all areas of science and engineering.
 
  1. •U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Information Bridge
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/
Contains citations and full-text documents of DOE research in physics, chemistry, medical and life sciences, nuclear energy, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, and renewable energy.
 
Mathematics and Computer Science
 
  1. •arXive
http://www.arXiv.org/
Cornell University hosts arXive, a digital archive of over 350,000 electronic preprints of papers in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, and quantitative biology.
 
  1. •Cogprints: Cognitive Sciences E-Print Archive
http://cogprints.org/
A repository for self-archive papers in Psychology, Neuroscience, Biology, Linguistics, Computer Science, and Philosophy.
 
  1. •Computing Research Repository (CoRR)
http://www.acm.org/pubs/corr/
A partnership between ACM, the arXiv.org e-print archive, and NCSTRL (Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library).
 
  1. •Computer Science Technical Reports
http://www.nzdl.org/cgi-bin/cstrlibrary?a=p&p=about
Open access to over 45,000 reports in computer science.
 
  1. •Directory of Mathematics Preprint and e-Print Servers
http://www.ams.org/global-preprints/
From the American Mathematics Society.
 
Library and Information Sciences
 
  1. •DoIS
http://wotan.liu.edu/dois/
A database of articles and conference proceedings in the field of library and information science.
 
  1. •E-LIS
http://eprints.rclis.org/
An open-access archive pre or post prints on Librarianship, Information Science and Technology, and other, related areas.
 
Economics and Business
 
  1. •Academic Business Literature Digital Library
http://gunther.smeal.psu.edu/index.html/
Academic business documents from Penn State Smeal College of Business.
 
  1. •Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)
http://repec.org/
A unique combination of citations and links to books and chapters and published articles from scholarly societies, commercial and non-commercial publishers in economics, AND unpublished research, such as working papers, discussion papers, research reports, and conference papers. All RePEc materials are free. Also includes directories of professionals and their contact information and associated publications, and economics institutions such as academic departments, research institutes, and governmental organizations.
 
Environment
 
  1. •Collection on Critical Global Issues 2.0
http://www.sadl.uleth.ca/nz/cgi-bin/library?a=p&p=about&c=ccgi
A database of 210 publications developed by the United Nations University Press. It contains full-text access to articles in Agriculture and Land Management, Development, Environment and Sustainability, Food and Nutrition, Natural Resource Development, Science and Technology.
 
  1. •U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Information Bridge
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/
Contains citations and full-text documents of DOE research in physics, chemistry, medical and life sciences, nuclear energy, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, and renewable energy.
 
Humanities
 
  1. •Monastic Matrix
http://monasticmatrix.usc.edu/
Monastic Matrix is a scholarly resource documenting the religious and social aspects of Christian women’s lives in medieval Europe between 400 to 1600 CE. It contains profiles of communities, a bibliography of primary and secondary sources, biographies, a glossary of terms, and digital images.
 
    Education
 
  1. •See AERA SIG Communication of Research under Electronic Journals, Directories or Multiple Journal Databases
 
 
Philosophy
 
    1. •Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
 
 
2.   Electronic Archives
 
c.    Directories
 
  1. •Directory of Mathematics Preprint and e-Print Servers
http://www.ams.org/global-preprints/
From the American Mathematics Society.
 
  1. •Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDoar)
In partnership between the University of Nottingham (UK) and Lund University of (Sweden), a comprehensive list of institutional and subject-based repositories, as well as archives
 
  1. •DSPACE
http://libraries.mit.edu/dspace-mit/
Directory of DSPACE communities at MIT. DSPACE communities provide open access to their research in a variety of digital formats, including books, theses, computer programs, images, video and audio files, and Web pages.
For DSPACE communities at MIT go to, https://dspace.mit.edu/index.jsp
For DSPACE communities at other institutions go to, http://wiki.dspace.org/DspaceInstances
 
  1. •E-Print and Related Archives
http://tardis.eprints.org/discussion/eprintarchivessubjecttable9103.htm
Directory of archives at academic and research institutions.
 
  1. •Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)
http://www.ndltd.org/
        Makes electronic theses and dissertations available to the public for free.
 
  1. •OAIster
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/
OAIster, from the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service, contains digital resources from 580 institutional repositories. These resources are academically oriented and previously difficult to find. They include: electronic books, online journals, audio files (e.g., wav, mp3), images (e.g., tiff, gif), movies (e.g., mpeg, QuickTime), reference texts (e.g., dictionaries, directories).
 
  1. •Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR)
http://archives.eprints.org/
A list of open-access archives through Institutional Archives Registry
 
  1. •The Virtual Technical Reports Center
http://www.lib.umd.edu/ENGIN/TechReports/Virtual-TechReports.html
A directory of institutions from the University of Maryland University Libraries that provide e-prints, technical reports, dissertations, and theses in either full-text or searchable extended abstracts form.
  
 
3. Other
 
  1. •E-Prints
http://www.eprints.org/services/
Provides support for the creation of institutional repositories through software, training, and technical assistance.
Go to http://www.eprints.org/services/ for a list of publishers that have agreed to allow self-archiving of pre-prints or post-prints.
See also Eprints’ Glossary of Open Access Terms at http://www.eprints.org/glossary/ and its bibliography on the impact of open access on research usage,