Qatar University, led by Qatar University Library, is part of a global academic movement aptly named ‘Open Access’ that seeks to open research to all, with no restrictions such as fees, copyright or other barriers
Free access to information has become a global demand advocated by many educational, cultural and research institutions with the aim of disseminating knowledge and accessibility for the benefit of all. Every year, the last week of October is dedicated to this initiative, known as ‘Open Access Week’ during which many activities, events, workshops and seminars are organized to raise awareness about this movement and the importance of opening access to information without financial, technical or legal restrictions.
The Qatar University Library believes strongly in the importance of its role towards national development through open access. The Library works to achieve the principles of The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), which includes providing internet to users, assisting patrons without discrimination, developing their skills in using technology and research via awareness programs and insuring that the intellectual output of the university is available through a digital repository without restrictions.
Qatar University Library supports open access in a number of ways:
• Qatar University makes its scholarly output freely available via QSpace, the Qatar University institutional repository. QSpace aims to increase visibility of the original research and scholarly works of the QU community on a local and global level, capture the academic activities of QU, facilitate institutional academic achievement and provide a permanent portal of access to resources for the QU community. QSpace includes faculty publications, research materials, learning materials, images, audio and video outputs, book chapters, reports and associated data, theses and dissertations and conference proceedings.
• The Library coordinates with the Graduate Studies office to encourage members of faculty and research to deposit their work in the digital library and helps them archive their research articles. The Library’s digital repository and archive team provides a periodic report to the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, research center directors and college deans, which details the contributions that faculty and researchers have provided to the digital repository.
• The Library also provides and highlights a range of openly accessed digital repositories available within the library website as a directory.
• The Library works with Qatar National Library in providing a range of grants in cooperation with various publishing houses to publish research issued by the State of Qatar.
• The Library has digitized part of its collections including manuscripts, and made it available through the library's electronic catalogue. It also works to digitize the university's publications and collections in cooperation with Qatar National Library, in order to make them available within the university's digital repository without restrictions.
To celebrate this year’s Open Access Week, the Qatar University Library in collaboration with UCL Qatar and the British Library produced the first international guide on setting up Cultural Heritage Innovation Labs. The guide will be made available to all users around the world free of charge. The guide was completed in a week during a ‘book sprint’ in which a number of experts including authors and academics from around the world came together to share their experiences in setting up, using and running Cultural Heritage Innovation Labs. The experts came from an array of cultural heritage institutions including but not limited to the Library of Congress, British Library and the Royal Library of Denmark.