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The Unisa Library hosts the first annual International Open Access Week
The Unisa Library hosted the first annual International Open Access (OA) Week from 19 to 23 October 2009.
As part of the International Open Access Week, the Library held an exhibition to raise awareness about the importance of open access for research. The exhibition focused on the two primary vehicles for delivering open access: OA journals and OA archives or repositories.
At the centre of the exhibition was the Unisa Institutional Repository (UnisaIR). Unisa researchers are encouraged to submit their published articles so as to make information more easily accessible to scholars on the African continent and beyond. Unisa Press is supporting the UnisaIR by allowing their authors to submit their published articles, and by archiving some of their journals and books on the UnisaIR. A selection of Unisa Press journals were also on display at the exhibition.
In addition to the exhibition, a special programme was hosted on 22 October 2009 where Dr Buhle Mbambo-Thata, Executive Director of the Unisa Library and leading OA advocate in Africa, elaborated on the growing open access movement and the Library’s commitment to it. Guests included the Executive Dean of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Prof Setati, and the DST-NRF South African Research Chair in Development Education, Prof Catherine Odora Hoppers, who gave the keynote address.
In her address, Prof Odora Hoppers presented an analogy from Thomas Friedman’s book The world is flat, where three levels of globalisation are analysed. Level 1 began with Columbus and his journey to distant shores. It was globalisation that shrank the world from large to medium (between 1495 and 1800). Globalisation 2.0 lasted from 1800 to 2000. This globalisation was driven by multinational companies. This globalisation shrank the world from medium to small. The force that gives the third-level globalisation (from 2000 onwards) its unique character is the new-found power of individuals to "go to scale in their own right and create worldwide platforms". This globalisation has shrunk the world from small to super small.
She linked Friedman’s analogy to modern information technology which opens the locked doors that once hid knowledge."By encouraging the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society, and arguing that all research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, this movement is clearly a movement for the democratization of the products of research," concluded Odora Hoppers. | 
