1) What is Open Access Publishing?

Open Access is the free, online availability of scholarly literature, for everyone, on the web.

A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access

2) Who Benefits from Open Access?

• Students
• Faculty
• Universities
• Publishers
• Scholars
• Researchers

3) Why Open Access?

Open Access:

• Advances research because scholars and researchers have unlimited access to the resources they need to further their own research
• Increases the visibility and impact of a researchers' work, which benefits the researcher and the University
• Eliminates restrictions on availability of articles and research for teaching purposes
• Disseminates research faster and more effectively

Open Access 101, from SPARC from Karen Rustad on Vimeo

To learn more about open access, visit the The Open Access Directory.

The Open Access Directory is a concise collection of information and factual lists about open access and its significance for scholarship.

4) Open Access Directories, Databases, and Digital Libraries

   General:

DOAJ- Directory of Open Access Journals

A directory of over 10000 OA journals

DOAB- Directory of Open Access Books

A directory of OA electronic books

Oaister Search Engine

A directory of academic digital resources

Sherpa/RoMEO

RoMEO is a searchable database of publisher's policies regarding the self-archiving of journal articles in Open Access repositories

Theology and Religion:

Princeton Theological Seminary's Theological Commons

A digital library of over 80,000 resources on theology and religion.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

A digital library of classic Christian books

Post-Reformation Digital Library

A database of digital books related to the development of Theology in the Reformation and Post-Reformation era

Early Christian Writings

A collection of links to information about and online texts of Christian primary sources

Internet Sacred Text Archive

Christian texts dating from the biblical era to the 20th century

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA)

This data archive includes American and international collections for use by educators, journalists, religious congregations, and researchers

ATLA Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative

A repository of digital resources contributed by member libraries of the American Theological Library Association

Pastoral Care and Counseling: 

UK PubMed Central

Over 400,000 open access, full-text articles resources for biomedical and health researchers, including pastoral care and counseling

5) Open Access Journals

6) Evaluating Information Sources

Critical evaluation of information is essential to finding quality research.  As with other online sources, open access resources

should always be evaluated for quality, authority, and accuracy

Evaluation Information Sources

Have a question?  Please contact the AST Library for assistance.

AST Library Website