For those interested in Open Access materials, one of the places to watch is the Library of Congress (LoC). Often serving in the role of a de facto national library, the LoC contributes Open Access materials on a wide variety of topics to its digital collections and publicizes the efforts through a blog, The Signal.
The librarians at LoC have hit the ground running in 2023, having added historical recordings, books, and datasets to their online collections. These include 58 new recordings to the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature from the 1960s-1980s, and LandScan GIS datasets for Ukraine and Russia that include population density. The library also added over 100 Open Access ebooks and German language newspapers published in Washington, D.C.
Even when online materials are Open Access, they still require software to be viewed. In February, LoC announced the creation of an EPUB reader for its ebooks. This viewer allows readers to access over 6,000 OA ebooks on the website without downloading a PDF and provides an improved interface for readers.
LoC is also planning to actively add materials to its online collections in the future and has outlined a digitization strategy for 2023-2027. With over 9 million items already digitized, this program offers five guiding principles to “expand, optimize, and centralize its collections digitization program to significantly expand access to users across the country to rare, distinctive, and unique collection materials which can be made openly available online and use digitization as a core method for preservation reformatting of rights restricted collection materials.” This ongoing commitment to Open Access materials on the part of LoC is exciting for Milner Library and its patrons.
While LoC does not set policy for public or university libraries, its practices can often indicate trends that other libraries will be inclined follow. Milner Library staff members are always happy to discuss their work with patrons. If you have questions or would like to make your materials more readily available, it is often possible to place pre-prints or even published articles and other materials in Milner’s institutional repository ISU ReD.
If you wish to discuss this further, please contact Milner Library’s Scholarly Communication Team at isured@ilstu.edu.
