Dr. Martin Halbert lectures on Open Access
By Megan Sherry
Since its first celebration in 2008, Open Access Week has been an annual opportunity for researchers and others in academia to come together to discuss, learn more about, and encourage open access to information. The International Open Access Week website defines open access as “the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need.” This year’s theme is a continuation from the previous year, “Community over Commercialization: Centering Equity in Knowledge Production,” in order to build on the call to better serve the public and academia through open scholarship.
To recognize Open Access Week (October 21-27), IU Libraries sponsored several programs, including a virtual Q&A session with IU librarians and an asynchronous Open Access Week Challenge. The week’s keynote lecture, titled “How the Dynamics of ‘Public Access’ and ‘Open Access’ are Creating the Next Generation Knowledge Ecosystem,” was presented by Dr. Martin Halbert, Professor and Research Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Dr. Halbert began his talk with a brief history of how transmediation, or changes in media formats, has shaped our interactions with information, pointing out how the models of the first libraries and printed books still structure our ideas of how information can be organized. He then identified the technological advancements of World War II as a turning point, citing inventors like Vannevar Bush who helped push America toward a more scientifically innovative society and began conversations about public access to information.
Moving into the present, Dr. Halbert reminded his audience that despite the vast and rapid technological changes seen in the past 20-30 years, we are still in what he called the “Incunabula Stage” of digital media:
“Cultural changes happen at a human pace, “said Dr. Halbert. “We’re only one generation in.”
He went onto identify problems with the ever-increasing volume of digital media, including commercial algorithmic control of our attention and the scholarly communication crisis. However, Dr. Halbert also emphasized opportunities that are being realized in open science movements, including the Open Access movement, FAIR data principles, and recent federal public access mandates like the Holden and Nelson memos. He called Artificial Intelligence a wildcard—something that will either get in the way of advancements in digital media and open access or help them along.
Dr. Halbert left the audience with the reminder that exploring new digital knowledge systems is a cooperative task, encouraging them to learn more about how they can use and participate in Open Access and to be excited about the road ahead.
The lecture ended with a Q & A session with the audience, which covered topics like data sets, the future of metadata, human problems, investment in training, social barriers, trusting openly accessible data, and motivation to be a part of this movement.
For Dr. Halbert’s full bio, visit the webpage for this event.
For more information on Open Access Week, see the International Open Access Week website.