Chapter 15
The Right to Research Coalition and Open Access Advocacy: An Interview with Nick Shockey Stephanie Davis-Kahl Illinois Wesleyan University Editors’ Note: In this interview, we wanted to get a sense of how information literacy and scholarly communication connections are enacted in the advocacy context. The Right to Research Coalition (R2RC), sponsored by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), is a perfect case study. Nick Shockey, Director of R2RC, discusses the education and outreach work of the coalition and how librarians play an integral role in students’ learning about their rights as creators.
Stephanie Davis-Kahl (SDK): Nick, thanks so much for agreeing to be interviewed for our book. I’d like to begin with talking about librarians specifically. What particular strengths can librarians bring to the Right to Research Coalition [R2RC]? Nick Shockey (NS): Librarians share a unique strength with students in that they both affect all areas of campus. Librarians serve as a resource for all departments and offices. Students obviously touch all parts of the campus as well, so that’s a strength that librarians can use to their advantage when pushing for priorities such as OA [open access] policies. Librarians are also subject matter experts when it comes to OA. They’re the ones who have to pay the bill for all these expensive journals, and most librarians have a good grasp on why journals have become so expensive. They have the understanding to explain the problems with a closed scholarly communication system and the opportunities of OA in a way that engages both faculty and students.
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