Celebrating Open Access Week

International Open Access Week is a global event now in its 6th year. It aims to share information and increase awareness and understanding of Open Access, the effects it will have on the whole scholarly communication process and those involved with this, and the measures and plans being put in place to manage its impact. Here at SAGE we are delighted to be supporting this initiative on a global scale. Open Access has a distinct impact not only on us as publishers but on our stakeholders and industry partners, and we are committed to working through these changes together. Open Access Week is a great opportunity to draw attention to the discussions on an international scale and to share ideas through engaged discussions.

OA isn’t new to SAGE. It has been just over a year and a half since we launched SAGE Open: the only broad-spectrum open access journal for the humanities and social science. It has reached several landmarks this year, having published its 100th article and having been honoured with an Annual Award for Publication Excellence (APEX) in the category of New Magazines & Journals. In addition SAGE Open Medicine, SAGE Open Medical Case Reports and SAGE Open Engineering joined the SAGE Open family in June and very excitingly have just started accepting manuscripts!

Alongside SAGE Open, we have also had a busy year discussing open access with both our society and library partners. This has culminated in a roundtable, run in association with the British Library and a suite of research-led resources for the librarian community including; Moving towards an open access future: the role of academic libraries”, “Working Together: evolving value for academic libraries” and “Improving Discoverability of Content in the Twenty-First Century”.

Understanding and being a part of the OA debate, to ensure that we are effectively supporting our partner’s changing needs and navigating the challenges with them, is of key importance to us. Throughout OA week we will be partaking in several debates and panel discussions. These include:

Lucy Robinson, Journals Publisher, SAGE will be taking part in the panel discussion “Open Access: UK Open Access Policies: Finch, the RC-UKs, and Beyond” on 23 October 2012 at 11am at the HighWire Meeting, Stanford University
Louise Skeilding, Senior Publishing Editor, SAGE will be presenting on OA at Dundee University on 24 October 2012
Jim Gilden, Editor for SAGE Open Sales, will be participating in OA Week activities at Rutgers University (October 23), Northeastern University (October 25), and University of Victoria (October 26)
Will Schweitzer, Senior Journals Publisher, SAGE, will take part in University of Kansas OA week festivities

Summaries of each of the presentations and their key takeaways will be appearing here over the next week. Make sure you keep an eye on SAGE Connection for further news, debate and discussion throughout Open Access Week!

About SAGE Publications

Founded in 1965, SAGE is the world’s leading independent academic and professional publisher. Known for our commitment to quality and innovation, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students across a broad range of subject areas. With over 1200 employees globally from principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, and Washington DC, our publishing programme includes more than 640 journals and over 800 books, reference works and databases a year in business, humanities, social sciences, science, technology and medicine. Believing passionately that engaged scholarship lies at the heart of any healthy society and that education is intrinsically valuable, SAGE aims to be the world’s leading independent academic and professional publisher. This means playing a creative role in society by disseminating teaching and research on a global scale, the cornerstones of which are good, long-term relationships, a focus on our markets, and an ability to combine quality and innovation. Leading authors, editors and societies should feel that SAGE is their natural home: we believe in meeting the range of their needs, and in publishing the best of their work. We are a growing company, and our financial success comes from thinking creatively about our markets and actively responding to the needs of our customers.

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2 Responses to Celebrating Open Access Week

Hillary Corbett says:

October 22, 2012 at 6:55 am

Jim Gilden will be speaking at Northeastern University on October 24, not the 25th!

SAGE Publications says:

October 23, 2012 at 4:21 am

Thanks for that correction, Hillary! Jim will be writing about the session when he gets back too, so please do come back and let us know what you thought.