In 2015, the UNESCO General Conference proclaimed September 28th the International Day for Universal Access to Information. UNESCO protects and promotes access to information as a fundamental human right. Free access to information is critically important for democracy, development, and equality. This year, the global conference is focused on the important of the online space for access to information.
UT Libraries fully supports universal access to information, and we provide significant support for open access to scholarly information. We host two repositories, Texas ScholarWorks and Texas Data Repository, that provide international access to the scholarly work being done at the university. We provide incentives and infrastructure tools, like Pressbooks, to help increase the use and creation of open educational resources on our campus. In addition, we work with Texas Digital Library to provide Open Journal Systems (OJS) software as a free service to researchers on our campus who want to start an open access journal. Finally, the Libraries support many open access initiatives with a goal of creating a more equitable and sustainable scholarly communication ecosystem.