<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<font size="-1"><font face="Verdana">Congratulations to the 2009
ACRL-Oregon Award for Excellence Winners <b>Janet Webster and Michael
Boock</b>!<br>
<br>
<b>Project:</b> <i>Open Access Mandate @ Oregon State University
Libraries<br>
</i><br>
<b>About the project (from the nomination essay):</b><br>
"On March 6, 2009 the library faculty at Oregon State University
adopted an open access mandate requiring deposit of all their scholarly
materials into the university's institutional repository. For years,
librarians have been at the forefront of the push for OA, establishing
and promoting IRs on our campuses, supporting PLoS, DOAJ, lobbying for
the NIH mandate, etc. Librarians applauded the first-in-the-nation open
access mandate approved by the Harvard faculty of Arts and Sciences in
2008. Curiously, though, not a single library faculty association had
adopted a similar mandate before OSU. In an environment where most
libraries were merely talking about the need for OA mandates, the OSU
library faculty took action.<br>
<br>
This award recognizes initiatives that significantly improve Oregon
libraries and librarianship and this is just such an initiative. OSU's
mandate benefits libraries nationally and close to home. Through their
actions, OSU has shown Oregon's librarians to be leaders in the move
toward open access. This symbolic, put your money where your mouth is,
power alone would be worthy of the award. However, Oregon's libraries
will now also benefit from greatly increased access to the excellent
scholarly output of our colleagues at OSU. As we face budget shortfalls
and, specifically, journal cancellations, this access to scholarship
will be even more crucial for advancing research in our field. Though
the entire library faculty association at OSU deserves recognition for
their leadership, two OSU librarians were the key drivers of this
policy. Janet Webster, Head Librarian, Guin Library and Michael Boock,
Head of Digital Access Services deserve special acknowledgment for
conceiving of the idea and working tirelessly to see it through to
acceptance. Janet and Michael are vigorous and eloquent advocates for
OA. Without their efforts, there would not have been an OA policy for
the faculty to approve." <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font></font>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<img alt="Portland State University logo"
src="cid:part1.09060106.05080203@pdx.edu" align="left" height="35"
width="165"><br>
<br>
<p
style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><b>Robin
Paynter</b><br>
Social Sciences Librarian<br>
220D Library<br>
Portland State University<br>
<br>
503.725.4501<br>
503.725.4524<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:paynter@pdx.edu">paynter@pdx.edu</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.pdx.edu/library/paynter.html">http://www.pdx.edu/library/paynter.html</a>
<br>
<br>
“The fragmentation of rational knowledge in the postmodern world has
produced a focus on information that is unaware of its history.” –
Marcus Breen (1997)</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>