ScholarWorks and Open Access Scholarship at Montana State University

Abstract

This presentation addresses the contemporary issues of scholarly publishing, open access and Montana State University's Institutional Repository, ScholarWorks. As research dissemination has moved from print to digital over the last three decades, the existing access model of journal subscriptions is proving unsustainable due to exorbitantly increasing costs. In the face of subsequently reduced access, which affects researchers, students, and the public alike, ScholarWorks and other open access institutional repositories serves as an alternative model providing greater access and visibility of research, increased opportunities for collaboration, faster dissemination of research, long-term stable archiving, and the possibilities of increased impact and rates of citation. In essence, ScholarWorks is a central point of discovery enabling MSU scholarship to be citable, shareable, and findable through the web.