Otis College LibGuides: Databases: Open Access Content

What Is Open Access?

"Open Access to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole." --Open Access Week

Open Access (OA) does not mean free access. Some journals may charge nominal fees or impose an embargo period. Many publishers use a color system to distinguish between these different levels.

The OA movement is related to the open source movement (for software and coding) and Creative Commons. All of them help creators define how and when their content can be used and re-used.

"A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access" by Peter Suber
First published in 2004

Suber expanded on that article (plus other writings) into a textbook on open access:

Open Access by Peter Suber
Call Number: E-book
ISBN: 9780262301732
Publication Date: 2012
Published by The MIT Press. In this concise introduction, Peter Suber tells us what open access is and isn't, how it benefits authors and readers of research, how we pay for it, how it avoids copyright problems, how it has moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and what its future may hold.

Find Open Access Content

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
Search over 32,000 e-books, mostly from academic and scholarly presses
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. Aims to cover all subjects and languages.

Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. Many books and images available.

Free on the web
Independent Voices
Open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
Open Access Digital Theological Library (OADTL)
Open Library
Short-term access to over 1 million books. Must create an Internet Archive account to borrow ebooks.
Project MUSE
Project MUSE offers open access (OA) books and journals from several distinguished university presses and scholarly societies Covers literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, etc.
Public Library of Science
Scholarly biomedical journals online. PLOS is a nonprofit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication.
World Bank Open Data
Provides free and open access to a comprehensive set of data about development in countries around the globe.

Open Access Content by Vendors

These publishers and database vendors are making it easier to search for open access content on their platforms:

Open Content on JSTOR - 5,000 e-books
ProQuest Research Library - now includes open access content in its search results
Taylor & Francis - Select frontlist and backlist titles

Most of this content is listed in the Directory of Open Access Books and the Directory of Open Access Journals.