By Michael S. Lewis-Beck, F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science

As emeritus faculty, I’ve spent my career researching and writing about politics. I published my first academic paper in 1974. Then as it is today, having your academic work cited is critical. But now the methods of scholarly publishing are very different. Academic publishers and academic libraries alike are faced with financial challenges of changing technologies and greater demand for information.

Over the course of my career I’ve authored or co-authored more than 200 articles and books in comparative elections, election forecasting, political economy and quantitative methodology. I can’t hazard a guess as to how many students, researchers and others have read my ideas in the past 40 years.

Then three years ago, 24 of my articles and book chapters were uploaded into Iowa Research Online (http://ir.uiowa.edu). Now each month, I receive notification of how many times an article has been downloaded. It’s exciting to see those numbers grow. But what might be even more exhilarating is the fact that my work will be available to students and researchers in perpetuity.

The University of Iowa Libraries joins thousands of other academic research libraries worldwide in celebration of International Open Access Week. To draw attention to this important issue facing faculty, students and librarians, we’re turning our website orange in recognition of open access.

“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.

OA Week creates an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of open access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.

To participate in OA week, do one or more of the following:

• Visit the University of Iowa’s Open Access web page and learn more about what OA is and how you can participate in making scholarship more freely available.
• Look at a list of open access articles authored by UI faculty and staff.
• Follow the Library News this week to hear what UI faculty and others think about OA and how they are becoming part of the solution.
• Join us on Monday, October 29 at 3pm to hear Don Share, Senior Editor of Poetry Magazine talk about how one of the leading poetry magazines in the country went Open Access.
• Take a few minutes to learn more about copyright and the importance of retaining rights to your published work.  What does the last publication agreement you signed allow you to do with your work?
• Deposit pre-prints, post-prints and associated data files in Iowa’s institutional repository: Iowa Research Online (ir.uiowa.edu).