and the thoughtful conversation it inspired, the event was quite successful. We would therefore like to offer the following recommendations to other institutions or departments planning Open Access Week activities in the future: Make it relevant. Well-structured, relevant conversations are more engaging for everyone involved. Draw on your institution’s mission statement. Tying the discussion to your institution’s mission will help to ensure this relevance, and will also help secure buy-in and interest from your senior management. Create connections. Prior to the 2009 panel discussion, we arranged for John Wilbanks to meet with some of our most prominent scientists, allowing him to understand the culture and concerns of UCAR, and helping the scientists to recognize how advances in open access can extend the impact of their research. Meet your audience where they are, physically as well as intellectually. Plan early, schedule early. This will be especially important if your institution is hoping to bring in a speaker. Once you know the date, ask people to hold it, and let them know to look forward to future updates. Give them stuff, but also give them information. While you are handing out buttons and T–shirts, do not miss the opportunity to educate and inform your audience about the importance of open access in scholarly publishing. This is a particularly valuable approach for institutions planning their first Open Access Week, and will help you stay within your budget. At the time this article is being written, plans for UCAR’s celebration of Open Access Week 2010 remain underway. We will certainly use the opportunity to celebrate the launch of UCAR’s open access repository, OpenSky (scheduled for September 2010), and look forward to building on the momentum of last year’s successes. © 2010 Jamaica Jones This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/. RLI 270 23 Open Access Week: Library Strategies for Advancing Change ( C O N T I N U E D ) JUNE 2010 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC
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