Opening access to conservation knowledge

Overview and objectives

Summary:

Access to literature is a major challenge for the conservation community and is particularly acute beyond academia. While the open access revolution has the potential to overcome this challenge, its…

Access to literature is a major challenge for the conservation community and is particularly acute beyond academia. While the open access revolution has the potential to overcome this challenge, its impact in conservation has been limited to date. As the world’s largest environmental network, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between the open access movement and the conservation community, as part and parcel of its historic efforts to facilitate access to knowledge on nature conservation. There is a need but also an opportunity for the IUCN Library to refurbish its original ambitions for the 21st century by taking advantage of the digital technologies, Internet accessibility, and the open access movement for the benefit of conservation. However, a number of crucial knowledge-sharing functions remain undelivered and unresourced in IUCN. With the assistance of the Arcadia Fund, the IUCN Library seeks to extend access to conservation knowledge on multiple fronts: firstly by providing guidance and outreach to the IUCN conservation community on the fundamentals of open access, but also by supporting the development of an IUCN Open Access policy and through the improved dispensation of library and publishing services.

Objective:

With the assistance of the Arcadia Fund, the IUCN Library seeks to extend access to conservation knowledge on multiple fronts: firstly by providing guidance and outreach to the IUCN conservation…

With the assistance of the Arcadia Fund, the IUCN Library seeks to extend access to conservation knowledge on multiple fronts: firstly by providing guidance and outreach to the IUCN conservation community on the fundamentals of open access, but also by supporting the development of an IUCN Open Access policy and through the improved dispensation of library and publishing services.