Heather Saunders, copyright and scholarly communications librarian
You’re starting a new job in January. Tell us about it!
I’ll be covering the University of Winnipeg’s Scholarly Communications and Copyright Librarian, Brianne Selman, while she is on research leave. This is my first time supporting an institutional repository, which allows me to engage with open access in a new way. I’m also excited to join a faculty union, having served as a librarian representative on a special joint committee of a faculty union in a previous position that led to librarians becoming members shortly after I left. I never got to enjoy the fruits of my labour, but I feel like I can do so now, only in a different institution. Continue reading →
Martin Eve, humanities researcher, open access innovator and cerebral vasculitis patient
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m a Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London. I specialise in contemporary American fiction (primarily the works of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace), histories and philosophies of technology, and technological mutations in scholarly publishing. And I’m a member of the UK English Association’s Higher Education committee.
And you’re involved with the open access movement?
Yes, I wrote the book Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future (Cambridge University Press, 2014: 9781107484016). Continue reading →
Ernesto Priego, multi-scholar and carer
I wanted to interview Ernesto when I saw this tweet:
I got in touch, and he agreed to talk to us.
Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I’m a full-time academic in a London University. I have both British and Mexican nationality. My background is in English Literature and Cultural Studies, and my PhD was in Information Science, looking at the way comic books relate to reproduction technologies in the context of the so-called “digital age”. I have a wide array of interests that could all be covered by the general umbrella term of “culture” (this includes science of course). Continue reading →
Stef Benstead, disability rights campaigner
Tell me a little bit about yourself?
I’m a Christian and a Cambridge graduate. I had started a PhD in Cambridge in conservation science, looking at how habitat loss and climate change affect two of the birds that live in the south UK, but had to withdraw after I became ill. I’ve been back in Manchester, living with my parents, for the last four years.
I became involved with the Spartacus network after the publication of their first report on the government’s move from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and have since done a number of reports with them on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and the Work Capability Assessment (WCA).
What disability are you suffering from? Continue reading →
“Your Story Matters” at Harvard
Harvard University has been running an open-access repository for many years. It’s called DASH (Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard).
Today they’re launching Your Story Matters, a collection of many hundreds of short testimonials of how free access to Harvard researchers’ publications has helped state legislators, TV producers, community-college lecturers, preachers, high-school teachers, parents of autistic children, dieticians and many, many others do their jobs more efficiently and more effectively.
As Peter Suber says:
These stories volunteered by the users of our open-access repository are the best evidence that OA serves real people with real needs, that OA meets unmet demand, that the demand unmet by conventional journals includes academic and non-academic readers.
It’s great that this site is now online, helping us to appreciate some of the vast opportunity cost of keeping research locked behind paywalls.
Niek Huizenga, young entrepreneur and IT specialist
Niek Huizenga is a Dutch entrepreneur, 30 years young, (almost) married and living in Groningen (the Netherlands). During his studies — BSc. in IT and MSc. in Business & Economics — he started several businesses. He divides his time between studying and working in the Netherlands and working in various African countries. We talked to him about his strategies for finding information, the usefulness of open access, and the difficulties that people in Africa experience finding the right information.
Christy Collins, mother and M-CM patient advocate
What is M-CM?
M-CM stands for macrocephaly-capillary malformation. It is a rare genetic syndrome first identified by researchers in 1997.
Could you tell us a little about the M-CM Network and how it was formed?
When my daughter, Signe, who is now 2 and a half years old, was diagnosed with M-CM, there was already a strong patient support community online facilitated by a family in England. The Internet and social networking largely solved the problem of connecting patients to each other without the need for a formal organization or fundraising. Because peer support was taken care of, our own organization was founded to accelerate research and make it easier to get clear, reliable information about M-CM.
AnnMaria De Mars, small business founder
AnnMaria De Mars is President and founder of the Julia Consulting Group based in Santa Monica. She’s worked in both academia and business. We talked to her about how access to research affects her consulting business, and her reaction to the Research Works Act
Could you tell us a little about the Julia Group and what you do?
We mostly do statistical consulting, contracted research and customized programming. We were originally a satellite office of Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc., founded around 2000. We spun off as a separate company in 2008.
Mark Bisby, research advisor and advocate
Mark Bisby is an ex-professor, ex-civil servant. He ran his own lab in physiology and neuroscience for 25 years, and then joined the Medical Research Council of Canada just before it transitioned into the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), where he became VP Research. There, beyond his own specialty knowledge, he learned a great deal about the importance of other approaches to health research such as population health, and health services research. Mark retired six years ago, but like so many people seems to have been just as active since! We asked him how he’s using his broad knowledge and experience. Continue reading →
Alistair Scott, knowledge manager for aid and international development
The Institute of Development Studies (IDS), based in the UK, is a leading global charity for international development research, teaching and communications. Alistair Scott is an Information Systems Manager with its Mobilising Knowledge for Development (MK4D) programme.
Alistair explains what they do:
We work with partners in developing countries to build a bridge from research to policy and practice. We do this by delivering open access information products and services such as Joto Afrika – an East African briefing series on Climate Change Adaptation which was developed jointly between ourselves and the Kenyan organisation ALIN (Arid Lands Information Network).
Who needs access? You need access! 
