The SFU Library is active in supporting Open Access in a variety of ways.

Please see our report Removing barriers: Open Access strategy at the SFU Library from January 2010 for details.

"PubMed Central Canada (PMC Canada) provides free access to a stable and permanent online digital archive of full-text, peer-reviewed health and life sciences research publications. It builds on PubMed Central (PMC), the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature and is a member of the broader PMC International (PMCI) network of e-repositories."

http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/ppmc-localhtml/about.html

" The University of Ottawa is the first Canadian university to adopt a comprehensive open access program that supports free and unrestricted access to scholarly research.

The University's new program includes:

• a commitment to make the University's scholarly publications available online at no charge through the University's repository, uO Research;
• an author fund to help researchers defray open access fees charged by publishers;
• a fund to support the creation of digital educational materials organized as courses and available to everyone online at no charge ;
• support for the University of Ottawa Press's commitment to publishing a collection of open access books; and
• a research grant to support further research on the open access movement."

Read the full press release at the University of Ottawa.

See the University of Ottawa's OA program website.

The Simon Fraser University Library is pleased to present the following events as part of Open Access Week 2009, October 19 - 23, 2009. This week is an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. This international event is organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the PLoS (The Public Library of Science), Students for FreeCulture and OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook); Open Access Directory (OAD); and eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries).

Tuesday October 20, 1-2pm, Library room 7200
Tools & Support for Open Access Publishing
Speakers: Brian Owen and Gwen Bird, SFU Library

Hosting a conference? Starting an online journal? Wondering about management and publication options for e-books? As a partner in the Public Knowledge Project the SFU Library provides tools for your publishing endeavors. You'll hear about the Open Journal Systems, The Open Conference Systems, the Open Monograph Press, and options for publication hosting and other support. This includes an update on the CFI-funded Synergies project that uses the Open Journal Systems. You'll learn how these options fit into the larger scholarly publishing world. Come to hear what we can do for you, and tell us what you need from us.

FREE, but registration is required. Please register by email to library@sfu.ca

Friday October 23, noon-1pm, Library room 7200
The City of Vancouver's Open Data Initiative
Speaker: Vancouver City Councillor Andrea Reimer

Where can you download data about municipal election results, firehalls, community centres, parks, and more? As part of its work to enhance citizen engagement and foster digital innovation, the City of Vancouver is taking steps to provide more of its data to the public. Vancouver City Councillor Andrea Reimer has been a proponent of this initiative and will speak about the how, what, when, where, and why of the project. Bring your questions.

FREE, but registration is required. Please register by email to library@sfu.ca

And look for our display and handouts on Open Access in the lobby of the WAC Bennett Library, October 16 - 23.

For more information, please contact:

Gwen Bird, Associate University Librarian
gbird@sfu.ca
778.782.3263

• MIT,
• Harvard,
• Cornell,
• Dartmouth and
• University of California, Berkeley

have all signed the Compact for OA Publishign Equity in which they all commit to "the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds."

http://www.oacompact.org/compact/