Join Langara, Kwantlen, BCIT, SFU, and UBC for an exciting half-day celebration of Open Access Week (Oct 21-27, 2019). This year’s theme from SPARC is Open for Whom? Equity in Open Knowledge. Our keynote speaker, Jessie Loyer, will explore this question alongside participants through the lens of decolonization. The conversation will continue with local panelists engaged in open knowledge work.

Light refreshments will be served courtesy of our partner BCcampus. All are welcome.

Date: Tuesday, October 22 2019
Time: 12:30pm-1pm (check-in); 1pm-4pm (program)
Place: Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 8771 Lansdowne Road, Richmond BC; Wilson School of Design, room 4900
Cost: Free! Registration requested.

Summary of Jessie’s talk
Sometimes when folks are in the midst of a monumental, feel-good shift, they fail to realize who has been excluded from that space. Librarians and scholars have been advocating the ideals of open access for many years and have seen the exciting changes the movement creates for public knowledge. Yet we rarely think about whose voices are absent and the structures of power that limit this project. Together, we’ll query our positionality in these spaces, and consider how the politics of refusal and an ethic of care might intersect to complicate the open access movement, potentially creating futurities of reciprocity. If rethought as a tool of resurgence, open access can support justice.





About Jessie
Jessie is Cree-Métis and a member of Michel First Nation. She is a liaison librarian at Mount Royal University in Calgary, a guest on Treaty 7 and Blackfoot territory. Her research looks at Indigenous perspectives on information literacy, supporting language revitalization, and creating ongoing research relationships using a nêhiyaw minâ otipêmisiw concept of kinship.

We respectfully acknowledge that our host, KPU, takes its name from the Kwantlen First Nation and is located on the unceded traditional and ancestral lands of the Kwantlen, Musqueam, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen, Qayqayt and Kwikwetlem peoples.

UBC Library is proud to support International Open Access Week through an exciting series of events happening during the week of October 22-28. Please refer to the Library’s Open Access Week page for information about individual events and how to register.

ScholComm@UBC looks forward to seeing you there!

In celebration of open access and its global impact for over a decade, UBC and SFU will be participating in the 2018 International Open Access Week event during October 22-28, 2018.

Throughout UBC’s 2018 Open Access Week event, scholars will showcase and discuss their innovative research, teaching and learning skills and experiences while inspiring others to learn more and get involved with the global open access movement. These events will highlight the various opportunities and pathways enabling open scholarship for researchers at UBC and beyond.

Similar to past UBC Open Access Week events, this year will include free lectures, workshops, a panel discussion with a Q&A session, seminars, and symposia for students, faculty, staff, and the general public. Topical and timely issues will include the following ones to list just a few:

• new challenges faced by practitioners and stakeholders
• developing a scholarly/publishing profile
• applying Creative Commons licenses to your work
• navigating the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy (NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR)
• discovering Open Educational Resources (OER)

Visit Open UBC to register and attend these free events

Learn more about Open Access at UBC

This year’s International Open Access Week 2018 theme is “Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge” as announced by the 2018 Open Access Week Advisory Committee

Key highlights will focus on thought-provoking questions about challenges raised as the open access movement and scholarly research system draw closer despite changes in technology, education, funding, governments, publishing and such affecting many stakeholders around the world. This annual event is of keen interest to scholars, libraries, private and public research institutions, and anyone desiring to improve and advance a more equitable open scholarly research system.

Examples of anticipated questions surrounding the “Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge” theme for 2018 are as follows:

How do we ensure sustainability models used for open access are not exclusionary?

What are inequities that open systems can recreate or reinforce?

Whose voices are prioritized? Who is excluded?

How does what counts as scholarship perpetuate bias?

What are areas where openness might not be appropriate?

Stay tuned for more news about Open Access Week 2018 and upcoming Open UBC events!

UBC Library Communications team behind the 2016 Open Access Awareness campaign. Designer Jasmine Devonshire, Photographer and Videographer Clare Yow, Director Becky Potvin and Strategist Michelle Blackwell.

UBC Library is the first academic library to be selected as the Gold winner for the 2017 CPRS Digital Communications campaign of the year for their Open Access Awareness campaign.

The campus-wide campaign, that launched in the Fall of 2016 aimed to foster awareness and enhance student understanding around the Open Access movement and the open resources available through the Library. The campaign resulted in a significant increase in web traffic to the Library’s Open Access resources, major gains in year-over-year social media engagement and a successful launch event.

“We spent a lot of time understanding our student audience and determining the best ways to connect them with tools they need at a critical point in their academic careers,” said Michelle Blackwell Communications & Marketing strategist. “It is very gratifying to see that we made an impact.”

Celebrated annually, the CPRS Awards showcase Canada’s best public relations and communications projects and campaigns and was hosted in Kelowna, B.C.

“Thanks to CPRS for this recognition,” said Becky Potvin, Director of Communications for UBC Library, “the campaign was executed by a four-person team on a shoestring budget and was created in collaboration with our librarians and colleagues at the Centre for Teaching and Learning. It was successful in helping to raise the library’s profile and connect students with important research tools. We are very proud.”

Mary-Lou Florian, Research Associate Emerita at the Royal British Columbia Museum, recipient of the 125th Commemorative Medal from the Governor-General of Canada and UBC alumna has made her new book, Comparative Anatomy of Branches, Roots and Wood of Some North American Dicotyledonous and Coniferous Trees and Woody Shrubs Used in Ethnographic Artifacts: Identification and Conservation Concerns available through UBC’s cIRcle Digital Repository.

 

After retiring in 1991 from her position as Chief of Conservation Services for the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, Florian has devoted her time to research and writing – publishing several books related to the conservation of museum objects. 

 

Keen to make her research more widely available, Florian approached UBC Library to make her new book available through its Open Collections. “I thank the University of British Columbia cIRcle Digital Repository for accepting my book. I am incredibly pleased the information will be available for anyone interested. An author could not wish anything more,” she said.

Read the full UBC Library press release here

QUICK FACT

In 1989, Ms. Florian “served as the conservationist on the Jason Project, the Mediterranean expedition led by Robert Ballard (who would later lead the discovery of the Titanic’s final resting place)”. Since then, she “has given numerous mycology and museum-related lectures and courses in North America and Europe and is a past recipient of the Governor General’s 125 Commemorative Medal for her contribution to community heritage preservation”. (Courtesy of UBC’s Trek Magazine)

VIEW/DOWNLOAD

Read her latest book, Comparative Anatomy of Branches, Roots and Wood of Some North American Dicotyledonous and Coniferous Trees and Woody Shrubs Used in Ethnographic Artifacts: Identification and Conservation Concerns via cIRcle, UBC’s Digital Repository

Mary-Lou Florian, Research Associate Emerita at the Royal British Columbia Museum, recipient of the 125th Commemorative Medal from the Governor-General of Canada and UBC alumna has made her new book, Comparative Anatomy of Branches, Roots and Wood of Some North American Dicotyledonous and Coniferous Trees and Woody Shrubs Used in Ethnographic Artifacts: Identification and Conservation Concerns available through UBC’s cIRcle Digital Repository.

After retiring in 1991 from her position as Chief of Conservation Services for the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, Florian has devoted her time to research and writing – publishing several books related to the conservation of museum objects. 

Keen to make her research more widely available, Florian approached UBC Library to make her new book available through its Open Collections. “I thank the University of British Columbia cIRcle Digital Repository for accepting my book. I am incredibly pleased the information will be available for anyone interested. An author could not wish anything more,” she said.

A comparative anatomy of tissues that were used historically in making ethnographic and archaeological artifacts, Florian hopes the book will be useful as a lab manual for teaching and reference for research, not only for ethnographic reasons, but also for many aspects of plant anatomy and identification and forestry.

“We are thrilled to provide open access to Mary-Lou’s latest book,” said Amber Saundry, Digital Repository Librarian at UBC Library, “In a short amount of time, we’ve seen strong use and interest in its specialized and unique information from conservators, curators, researchers and educators. We look forward to welcoming her future work to UBC Library via cIRcle and Open Collections“.

There is much excitement in the conservation community about the new-found accessibility of Florian’s research, “This book will be extremely useful for conservators and other collections professionals working with baskets, bark and other ethnographic materials,” says Eric Pourchot, Institutional Advancement Director at the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, “Thank you for making her research available.” 

Anne Lama, UBC’s Library Conservator is thrilled to have access to Florian’s new book, especially after encountering Florian’s research so often during her studies in the restoration of books and paper and preventive conservation at the University Paris-Sorbonne as well as her work at the National Archives in Paris. “I am thrilled she is still publishing and sharing her findings,” said Lama.

Lama expects to use the book often in her work at UBC Library. “I will be able to learn a lot from this research and it will be an excellent reference when making recommendations about the conservations of objects in our collections”.

cIRcle, UBC’s open access digital repository for published and unpublished material produced by the UBC community and its partners was created to showcase and preserve intellectual output, and support teaching, learning, and research activities. Items in cIRcle are presented through UBC Library’s Open Collections, which provides additional features that increase the findability and promotion of research. Items can be found via search engines (such as Google) and have permanent URLs and Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), so they can be discovered, accessed, and preserved long-term for future generations.

Borrow Mary-Lou Florian’s books.

More about Open Access at UBC Library.