What concerns do you have about access to scholarly literature for yourself and your students?

What can Grinnell College and Grinnell College faculty do to share teaching and scholarship more widely?

"As a teaching and learning community, the College holds that knowledge is a good to be pursued both for its own sake and for the intellectual, moral, and physical well-being of individuals and of society at large. The College exists to provide a lively academic community of students and teachers of high scholarly qualifications from diverse social and cultural circumstances. The College aims to graduate women and men who can think clearly, who can speak and write persuasively and even eloquently, who can evaluate critically both their own and others' ideas, who can acquire new knowledge, and who are prepared in life and work to use their knowledge and their abilities to serve the common good."--Grinnell College Mission Statement, 2002: http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/president/missionstatement

Grinnell College's teaching and learning community depends on the availability of scholarly work – peer-reviewed articles and books, syllabi and teaching materials, and other work – produced outside the college, just as other learning communities depend on access to the work created by Grinnell's faculty and staff. As a community of learners and teachers, we take seriously our responsibility to share our work widely for the benefit of society, and we encourage other scholarly communities to do so as well. At the same time, we advocate respect for the work of authors and other members of the community as part of the scholarly practice we share.

Today's digital technology promises better access to scholarly materials worldwide, yet faculty and students at Grinnell and elsewhere are frustrated by rising prices of scholarly publications and restrictive laws and policies regarding the use of these materials for teaching and learning. Many scholars and institutions are calling for all scholarly materials to be made openly available via the World Wide Web.

In April 2012, the Grinnell College Faculty endorsed formation of a task force "representing all three divisions, to explore the issue of open access more thoroughly including its benefits and risks, consult widely among the faculty, and return a recommended policy for Grinnell to the Faculty no later than December 2012." This Web site provides information and background on these issues. We invite your questions and comments and encourage you to learn more through the links below.

 

Members of the Task Force include:

  • Richard Fyffe (Libraries)
  • Heriberto Hernandez-Soto (Chemistry)
  • Sarah Purcell (History)
  • Tyler Roberts (Religious Studies)
  • John Stone (Computer Science)
  • John Whittaker (Anthropology)
  • Lesley Wright (Faulconer Gallery)

 

The Cost of Scholarly Publications: Impact on the Grinnell College Libraries (http://www.grinnell.edu/library/services/facstaff/scholcomm2)

Copyright and Scholarly Publishing: Impact on Teaching at Grinnell College (http://www.grinnell.edu/library/services/facstaff/scholcomm3)

What are Grinnell's Options? (http://www.grinnell.edu/library/services/facstaff/scholcomm6)

Taking Action: Further Information for Faculty and Other Authors (http://www.grinnell.edu/library/services/facstaff/scholcomm5)

Open Access Resolutions at Peer Colleges (http://www.grinnell.edu/library/services/facstaff/scholcomm7)