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7 Mar 2007

Do we practice what we preach?

My today’s mailbox included two special emails. One contained an attachment of proceeding of an International Conference having about 600 pages. I was very glad to receive it and hurried went through it. But it was the second email which forced my to think – it contained information on availability of another conference proceedings as a priced publication. I am asking myself a number of questions. Why should not the conference proceedings be archived somewhere and available through Open Access? What is the ultimate aim of any conference? Why do authors contribute and participate in such conferences? What are the organizers looking for? Perhaps all this is done to spread and share experiences among the professionals. But then, are there better ways?



LIS community from the very beginning had been the champions of “Access to Knowledge”. Why can’t then the proceeding of every LIS conference be made Open Access through archiving? Aren’t their enough LIS Repositories? Or we do not practice what we preach.



While I seek answers from my inner self, may I appeal to LIS Conference Organizers – Let the Knowledge Spread through Open Access.

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