This week is International Open Access Week (24-30 October 2011). The University of Bath supports open access to information through our Opus research repository and via our Open Access Mandate.
“Open Access” to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.
Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year.
(http://www.openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/welcome-to-open-access-week)
For more details about Open Access Week and activities around the globe, see: http://www.openaccessweek.org/
To learn more about making your own research openly accessible, contact the Opus Team in the library, or visit the Opus website and look in the Authors’ Corner for further information.
University of Bath: Library News 
As an academic scientist, I have an principled objection to Open Access publishing. Open Access involves payment of a fee to publish; thus the publication of a research paper becomes an advertisement. Advertisement is anathema to academic research.
Hello Mike,
All the major commercial journal publishers (Elsevier, Wiley, Taylor & Francis) and society publishers (ACS, RSC) offer Open Access options. The OA papers in these journals will have been through the same peer review and quality processes that non-OA articles have – they aren’t advertising, they’re just free to readers who (increasingly) can’t or don’t pay (rapidly increasing) journal subscription prices.
Additionally Open Access doesn’t mean payment of a fee. There are two options for OA publishing called the Green and Gold routes.
The Gold route is payment by the author/sponsor to make the article available to readers without a subscription to the journal. As mentioned, articles go through the same peer review and quality processes. I don’t believe scholarly publishing is governed by the ‘all publicity is good publicity’ school of thought – that would be an anathema to academic research.
The Green route requires no payment at all. The author stores a copy of the content of their work online, usually in a repository or archive. Sometimes it’s the published PDF, sometimes is the final author’s manuscript. This doesn’t cost a penny to upload or to read.
I’ll contact you for a chat and a cup of tea.
Kara Jones