Open access to the scholarly literature stopped being my job in 2011. I have yet to escape Open Access Week, however. A couple of years ago I had to tell some of our local students gently that no, I wouldn’t do yet another Open Access Week talk at UW-Madison as it made no sense for them or for me to have me do so; everyone there who ever wanted to hear what I have to say about open access already has.
I am still a useful second-string speaker at institutions that (for whatever reason) don’t spring for one of the top names, it seems. In contrast to my usual modus operandi, I don’t write a new talk every year for Open Access Week; instead, I have a mostly-stock talk that I adapt to the institutional context where I’m going.
Loyola University librarians told me that so-called “predatory publishing” was a concern among Loyola faculty and administrators. They also hoped for fewer electronic thesis embargoes and more (and more willing) participation in their institutional repository. I told them I’d try to speak to those issues, and I did try.