A display in the Leddy Library points up the hidden costs of research—millions of books, articles and other resources provided free of charge to students, faculty and staff members at the University.

The $650 Bibliography display board helps highlight the cost of access to even a small sample of research represented by one journal article along with the works listed in its reference list, says librarian Dave Johnston. The article Racial Identity Profiles of Asian-White Biracial Young Adults: Testing a Theoretical Model with Cultural and Psychological Correlates will soon be available open access in Scholarship at UWindsor.

“While some the works referenced in this paper are also open access, if you weren’t at a university and wanted to read just the articles in the reference list it would cost you $650,” Johnston says. “The growth of the worldwide open access movement is helping reduce the cost of research and increase its accessibility for everyone.”

October 19-25 is International Open Access Week, an opportunity to draw attention to the need for free online access to publicly funded research and the ways in which institutions like the University of Windsor are making this a reality.

When an article, book or other work is available open access, anyone can download it freely online. This means that research is more readily available to scholars in developing regions, non-university organizations, and the public. Open Access can increase the impact and readership of research and help expedite information and knowledge transfer when it matters such as during a crisis (see the Ebola crisis).

To find out more about open-access, visit the library’s open access guide: http://leddy.uwindsor.ca/open-access.