Ana María Cetto Instituto de Física, UNAM, and President, LATINDEX Panel on access to information and knowledge UNESCO conference Role of ICTs for Persons with Disabilities New Delhi, India, 26 November Open access to online scientific information for all: A regional perspective

Topics ● Introduction: the OA movement ● Free and open access, a tradition in Latin America ● Relevance of OA for our journals ● Making access really inclusive: what does it mean? ● Some strategic steps; what Latindex can do. 2

The OA movement ● First major steps: ● Budapest 2002 – Bethesda 2003 – Berlin 2003 ● What started it : ● Rising costs of scholarly journals ● What sparked it: ● Concerns of academics and librarians ● Pioneers : ● arXiv 1991 – Medline

Major regional initiatives - LATINDEX, comprehensive online information system, 1995 (Ibero America), 'all-inclusive' - SciELO, virtual journal library, 1996 (Brazil) - RedALyC, social sciences library, journal titles being published today in Ibero America! 4

Of online titles, 94.5 % are free Latindex, 2013: 5

Open Access statistics Source:Wikipedia 6

OA articles worldwide (green ans golden routes), Wikipedia

Relevance of open access To seize the benefits of the Open-Access movement : – Policies and actions in support of journals – International visibility Using our comparative advantages: – Tradition of free and open access – Common features: language, culture, problems... – Experience in regional cooperation 8

Making Open Access really inclusive: What does it mean? i)Produce good- quality journals for all needs - - diverse disciplines, languages, authors, readers,... ii)Make them visible and searchable - - open- access repositories and virtual libraries iii)Develop tools to facilitate and increase access. 9 9

Making Open Access really inclusive: What does it mean? ● Which tools? ● What are the needs of our readers/users? ● What is desirable / feasible? ● How to achieve it? 10

OA promotion policies

Creation of OA repositories S. Harnad. ROAR, August 2011 S. Harnad. ROAR 12

Some strategic steps ● Reliable data and diagnosis; analysis of specific needs ● Promotion and awareness raising ● Legislation, institutional mandates, normativity ● Participatory development of appropriate tools ● Training and technical support. IT tools are not the panacaea... But they offer valuable opportunities. 13

What Latindex could do " Latindex could become a beacon to spread this understanding (about inclusive open access) to the whole world" Bhanu Neupane, October 2014 ● Raise awareness and identify needs ● Include WC3 compliance as an additional quality criterion for journals and journal repositories ● Work with PKP to include accessibility tools into OJS (Open Journal System) software for journals and platforms ● Training and dissemination. We are ready to accept the challenge. 14

Some basic bibliography ● Acceso abierto a la ciencia, Ernest Abadal, Barcelona, 2012; ● Open Access Overview, Peter Suber, 2013 ● A number of dedicated websites and online documents