ASIS&T scholarly communication survey: Open access authors

Abstract

Open access to information is an important and relevant discussion in the field of library and information science. Open access (OA) publication refers to the free availability of scholarly literature without any access restrictions or fees. In 2008 the Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (JASIST) became a green-road OA journal. Prior to this decision the ASIS&T Board of Directors developed a survey to explore how this new policy would affect readership, submissions and subscriptions. Among survey respondents, there was an overwhelmingly high level of awareness of OA. Almost all (95.7% of participants) knew about OA journals and 60.4% indicated that they knew "a lot" or "quite a lot." The majority of OA authors, 77.2%, described their current access to the journal literature as "excellent" or "good." Overall there is a relatively positive attitude toward the concept of OA, particularly green road OA.