Part of Open UBC Week, October 28-29

Panel Speakers:

Lea Starr (moderator), Associate University Librarian with Research Services at University of British Columbia
Lauri Aesoph, Manager of Open Education at BCcampus
Michael Blades, Professor of Chemistry at the University of British Columbia
Margery Fee, Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of British Columbia
Sandra Mathison, Professor of Education at the University of British Columbia
Brian Owen, Associate University Librarian for Processing and Systems at Simon Fraser University Library
Melissa Pitts, Director of UBC Press

Tuesday, October 28, 2 to 3:30 P.M.  Register here.

Lea Starr, UBC’s Associate University Librarian, will moderate a panel discussion exploring the impact of open access on the field of scholarly publishing, giving special consideration to academic libraries. In the face of static library budgets and increasing journal prices for subscription journals, which have, on average, been increasing at a rate of about 6-10% per year, subscription libraries are under continual pressure. To cope, libraries have been accepting the “Big Deal” and have been cutting subscriptions that are outside these deals. “Since bundle size governs market power, non-profits have less ability to grow margins and scholarly societies rightly complained that they’re being squeezed. From the point of view of libraries, if you have to cancel something you can recoup revenue if you cancel the journals from a small publisher. You can’t recoup revenue if you cancel journals from the large commercial publishers. As a library, what are you going to do? Cancel scholarly society journals”. (Stuart M. Shieber, http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/01/29/why-open-access-is-better-for-scholarly-societies/.)

The panel will feature experts from a variety of backgrounds including university presses and open education advocates, and begin to tie together diverse perspectives.