Should information be free? Advocates of open access believe that information should be freely available for scholars to use to create new knowledge and to make new discoveries. Opponents of open access consider information to be intellectual property that should have the same protections from theft or appropriation as physical property. Not sure where you stand on this issue and want to learn more? To celebrate International Open Access week, the Lehigh University Libraries are sponsoring a screening of The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz. Aaron Swartz helped to develop RSS and the website Reddit. He was also a strong advocate for open access. The film is an exploration of his life, his activism, and the events leading to his untimely death. A discussion of open access, moderated by Professor Jeremy Littau of the Department of Journalism and Communication, will follow the screening, to be held at 4 PM on Tuesday, October 21, 2014 in STEPS 101. For more information about open access, please visit the Libraries’ guide: http://libraryguides.lehigh.edu/openaccess
To see open access in action, check out Lehigh Preserve, Lehigh’s institutional repository: http://preserve.lehigh.edu