Happy Open Access Week!

So what is open access anyway? Open access is free access to scholarly research that is available to anyone at any time anywhere. Most times, open access resources are freely available to be used, reused, redistributed, and modified so that these fit the needs of specific research. Open Access Week is in its 10th year. It began as Open Access Day in 2008 and because of the unabating push for open publishing, it evolved into Open Access Week. Open Access Week is an opportunity for organizations and institutions around the world to educate faculty, researchers, and students about the importance of publishing research and data openly to revamp current publication models and make it open to everyone.

This year’s Open Access Week’s theme is “Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge.” Although open access has been more prevalent in the last few years, there are still concerns and discussions around keeping the open access model sustainable and ensuring all voices and research are heard.

Are you interested in using open access resources for your research or have questions related to open access? Check out Copley Library’s Open Access subject guide and check out what other institutions and organizations are doing for Open Access Week 2018.

October Birthday Roundup!

Literary Birthdays!

What better way to celebrate your literary heroes than with a birthday celebration?  Here are some early October birthdays for renowned authors. You can search the Copley catalog for each of these authors’ names to find work by and about them. You can also search the database, Credo Reference, for biographical and critical information. All the biographical information in this piece was provided by Credo Reference Topics Pages; these are a fantastic source for quick, lay-of-the-land, information about a topic, person, place, or phenomenon. All the images below are from ArtStor, a wonderful image database. In our search of authors’ names, we found photographs and paintings of the authors, including self-portraits of a few, and images of their books and manuscripts. When using ArtStor, be sure to create your free account so you can download images for use in your papers and presentations.

Gore Vidal (October 3, 1925) wrote a great deal of historical fiction and essays, and contributed to the screenplay for the 1959 film adaptation of Ben Hur.

Ann Lane Petry (October 12, 1908) became the first African-American woman to write a novel selling over a million copies, in 1946 with The Street.

e.e. cummings (October 14, 1894), an early 20^th-century poet, whose first publication was a novelized account of time spent in a French prison during World War I.

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932), an American poet and novelist, passed away in 1963 after sharing with us her Colossus and The Bell Jar.

Join us this month in celebrating the work and lives of some of your favorite authors! If you need help looking into an author or authors, please get in touch with us through our Ask A Librarian page!