Open Access for all, engaging our library colleagues at the University of Southampton.

[Uni of Southampton OA team]

Are you a Green and Gold imposter? Do you nod you head and smile when anyone mentions Open Access – hoping they will not ask you any questions. You are not alone – unless you are working with the terminology, the funders, the policies everyday – it feels too confusing and unnecessary to listen properly now when you can do it tomorrow.

 Advocacy is our bread and butter here in the Research Engagement team at the University of Southampton and we want to raise the awareness level in Open Access week not just for our researchers but for our library staff  - if only to explain that Open Access does not mean “free to read”!

 Our cunning plan involves different ways of engaging with our audience, we will have informal sessions using the biscuits as an analogy for gold, green, diamond/platinum and preprints, digital bite-size teaching content for point of need and professional development activities, social media interaction to draw in our audience as well as longer teaching sessions in site libraries to ensure parity of access for all.

 This will also expose the work we do routinely – we can influence and explain the changing terminology, the policies, the funders to diverse audiences who want to understand a little more and have heard that “sharing knowledge that is Open by default” is here to stay.