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COVID-19: Library Updates 2022

Open Access support

Open access support at UTL

Open access seeks to not only serve institutional users better, but ensure access to knowledge for everyone. UTL provides financial support to a number of external initiatives that work to unlock research created across disciplines. The University Libraries also provide resources for researchers and faculty looking to publish OA.

APC discounts

The University of Toronto Libraries has negotiated discounts on article processing charges (APCs) for researchers looking to publish in a number of  Open Access journals. Access the full list of APC discounts. 

arXiv

The University of Toronto is an institutional supporting member of Arxiv, which holds e-prints in STEM subjects, including Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Physics, and Statistics.

BioMed Central

The University of Toronto Libraries is an institutional sponsor of BioMed Central. BioMed Central, one of the foremost Open Access publishers in the sciences. BMC has enabled the publishing of over 70,000 articles since its launch in 1999. University of Toronto faculty are eligible for 15% off APC charges for journals published by BMC and SpringerOpen.

Directory of Open Access Journals

University of Toronto Libraries is a member of the Directory of Open Access Journals, a community-organized index of openly accessible publications. DOAJ strives to make research and data free of charge for users, and has indexed over 3.4 million journal articles to date.

Erudit Journals

The University of Toronto Library is a partner of Erudit, one of Canada’s major publishers of both English and French-language research. Over 95% of Erudit’s content is openly accessible

Knowledge Unlatched

The University of Toronto supports Knowledge Unlatched’s journal and book unlocking projects.

KU strives to make humanities research available to everyone, by allowing libraries to pool resources and collectively pledge funds towards making publications openly accessible. So far, KU has made over 950 books and 16 journals open access.

Open Library of Humanities

The University of Toronto financially supports the Open Library of Humanities in its efforts to sustain open access publishing, while reducing author fees and article processing charges.

ScienceMatters

The University of Toronto is an institutional partner of ScienceMatters, a research platform that supports research accessibility and utility by publishing single observations as a “unit” of scientific inquiry. By publishing rigorous, methodical observations, ScienceMatters hopes to speed up the work of inquiry, by allowing for networks of observations to emerge. ScienceMatters conceptualizes science as an ongoing process, and aims to reduce barriers to information sharing through rapid publishing and review workflows. All research on ScienceMatters is immediately open access, and subject to a triple blind review process.

SCOAP3

The University of Toronto Libraries supports the Sponsoring Consortium in Publishing for Particle Physics. SCOAP3 functions by diverting library funding that would normally go towards journal subscriptions, towards article processing charge payments for researchers from participating universities. Since 2014, SCOAP3 has enabled the publishing  of more than 20,000 openly accessible articles.

TSpace

The University Library offers support to faculty who wish to deposit their Gold and Green OA research into TSpace, UofT’s institutional repository. TSpace provides stable links to articles, as well as metadata population, helping to increase visibility in web searches, while ensuring access to Green AO research through specific versions of research documents.

Why deposit your work in TSpace?

  • Openly accessible scholarly work and research is read and cited more often than work not freely available on the web (Swan, 2010).
  • Work submitted to TSpace has priority search engine indexing (Donohue, 2014), resulting in higher search engine rankings than items posted on departmental or personal websites.
  • TSpace uses permanent URLs, handles ensuring links to your submitted material always work. We also ensure that every file you upload does not degrade or change over time
  • TSpace deposits allow researchers to comply with the new Tri-Agency Open Access Policy in effect May 1, 2015
  • For more answers and common misconceptions about TSpace see our handy TSpace Info Series: Reasons to Submit guide.

How to deposit your work in TSpace

The submission process includes tasks such as interpreting publisher’s open access policies, finding the right version of a work for upload, and uploading a pdf to the TSpace server, amoung other things.  With the help of online guides and tutorials, researchers can complete this online submission process independent of library staff (after an initial authorization). Alternately, University of Toronto offers assisted deposit, a process wherein a staff member takes care of many steps in the TSpace deposit process on behalf of the researcher (service available until April 2019). Additionally, consultations are available for those who would prefer to submit independently, but would simply like some training to get started. Find detailed information about all of these options here.