Although our collections are geared primarily toward supporting our undergraduate curriculum, the library is committed to supporting faculty research. Interlibrary Loan is a valuable resource for accessing materials at research libraries. Additionally, we encourage you to talk to one of the librarians about your own research needs. We are also providing resources on this page about open access, including how to make your own research open access.
Peter Suber, the director of Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication, defines it this way:
Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.
He provides further information about it in his "Very Brief Introduction to Open Access"
Image courtesy of PLoS and Wikimedia Commons.
In addition to open access to scholarship, progress is being made on the open textbook front. Here are a few resources for using or creating open course materials.
OpenStax - based at Rice University and funded by Gates, Hewlitt, and other foundations, this site offers a number of peer-reviewed introductory textbooks for mathematics, sciences, and social sciences.
OER Commons - a project of the Silicon Valley-based Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education that offers both open resources and a platform for creating new textbooks and curriculum materials. Includes both K12 and higher ed resources.
Open Textbook Library - a clearinghouse for open textbooks reviewed by faculty; from the University of Minnesota's Center for Open Education.
Interested in getting a textbook, novel, poetry collection, conference proceedings, or collection of student essays into ebook and print-ready formats? Pressbooks is an easy-to-use, online tool that allows you to create professional-quality versions of your book in ePUB, MOBI, PDF, and more formats. Thanks to Minitex and Minnesota library support, it's free to use through the Minnesota Library Publishing Project.
Green Open Access publishing is free. There are no Article Processing Charges (APCs) or additional charges for authors.
When you have an article or chapter accepted for publication, the author-accepted version can can often be archived in GustieScholar. This is often referred to as a pre/post print.
An embargo period of 12-24 months set by the publisher may apply before a version of the article or chapter can be disseminated by GustieScholar.
Gold Open Access (sometimes referred to as "self-archiving") is when the final published version is immediately available to download, redistribute, and reuse from the date of publication or after payment of an APC.
An APC is usually payable when the manuscript is officially accepted and before publication and is charged to either the author, research funder, or institution.
Gold Open Access can be in subscription journals or in journals that are entirely Open Access. Subscription journals which offer paid Gold Open Access option are known as ‘hybrid’ Open Access journals.
The Kendall Center for Engaged Learning and the Folke Bernadotte Library will provide small grants to faculty that publish their work with an open access publisher that does not charge readers or institutions for access to the publication.
To be eligible, journal publishers must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals and book publishers may be listed in the Directory of Open Access Books. Also, a publisher must be a member of Open Access Scholarly Publisher's Association or meet its Code of Conduct.
You can make your scholarship available to the world! At least, if you haven't given a publisher exclusive rights.
We will automatically include any publication listed in Inside Gustavus if the publication's copyright policy allows it. You can also tell us about publications, and we will do the research to find out whether it can be included. Book chapters are tricky - we may need for you to find your publishing agreement before we can be sure it's okay to post.
We are happy to include publications, presentations, posters, or other kinds of scholarship that you want to make available online.
There are many places where you can make your work open access. These repositories, unlike for-profit platforms like ResearchGate and Academia.edu, don't rely on capturing personal information to fund their operations. Here are some classic and new examples:
Open Access by 
Author's Alliance Guide to Open Access - download for free.
