International Open Access Week has been observed around the World since 2008. It is an important week which draws attention to scholarly communication initiatives and brings like-minded individuals together.

This year’s theme reflects a scholarly system in transition.  As stakeholders in this process, there is still a need to ensure that research is made available to a diverse international community. As such, the MSK Library continues to supports the principles of open access to scholarly research literature as a means to accelerate scientific discovery, potentially increase research collaborations, and ultimately share knowledge that enhances patient care.

In honor of International Open Access Week, we will be featuring five open access publications by MSK authors and will showcase one each day as a Today’s Science Sparks on the library website. You can also browse the Today’s Science Sparks’ archives to find other open access articles.

I also want to share that the Public Library of Science (PLOS) is teaming up with PREreview to bring together researchers from around the globe to participate in a series of live online preprint journal clubs (Neuroscience, Bioinformatics & Ecology). This will give researchers an opportunity to interact with peers and share their comments on a manuscript still in progress. Those who want to participate will also witness first-hand the value of early sharing via preprint posting and how it increases opportunities for research discoverability, and could lead to new collaborations. Learn more from The Official PLOS Blog. In addition, check out the preprint resources listed on the MSK Open Access LibGuide.

And if you want to learn more about open access journals and other related topics, The STM Report, An overview of scientific and scholarly publishing, might be worth reviewing.  This is the fifth edition, hot off the press!  Report highlights include how approximately one third of the scholarly literature from 2016 is available from legal and sustainable open access sources, and that the biggest change in scholarly infrastructure has been the development of preprint servers and the growing use of preprints in the fields of biology and chemistry.

Finally, if you wish to further embrace the OA week experience, you can participate by following the conversation on Twitter during open access week — #OAWeek.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services