What Stake Do Libraries Have in OA
Suber defines and explains libraries’ stake in OA: “Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.” (Suber)
“If you want to make sure that anyone who needs to know about the latest developments in science, technology and medicine can read the literature, no matter who they are or what their institutional affiliations are, you should know about and support OA.” (Suber)

• How is the Open Access movement
  beneficial or detrimental to libraries, to publishers, and to
  readers?

Why is the Open Access movement becoming popular now?

I feel that the pricing of access to both print journals and
online journals is growing by more than the market and library
budgets can support, particularly in this economy is one of the
reasons for the increasing popularity of the OA movement.

What Role Can Libraries and Librarians Play In the Open Access Movement?

What stake do libraries have in the open access movement?

Libraries have an increasingly large stake in the open access movement. The ARL reports that "expenditures for serials by research libraries increased 210% between 1986-2001 while the CPI (cost per issue) increased 62%. The typical library spent 3 times as much but purchased 5% fewer titles". In addition to the huge price increases, "book purchases declined by 9% between 1986-2001 as libraries sought to sustain journals collections."

How is the Open Access movement beneficial or detrimental to libraries, to publishers, and to readers?

I've started having these 'Star Trek' moments, where I'm happily reading along about some a system of education, or publishing, or share-based economy and suddenly I'm in the future and it's like Star Trek; everyone has jobs doing whatever they think is interesting, contributing to the well-being of society.  At the end of the day,

What stake do libraries have in the open access movement?

Libraries have a financial stake and a philosophical stake in the open access movement. First of all, one of the factors in OA's recent and current popularity is the rising costs of serial subscriptions combined with stagnant or declining library budgets. As Peter Suber points out in his Open Access Overview, journal prices have risen at four times the rate of inflation since the 1980s. Library budgets cannot keep up with this rate, even at the wealthiest university libraries. As I learned in a class on Issues in Academic Libraries last semester, academic libraries are also competing with other student services (most notably computing services) for an ever-decreasing portion of the university budget. This means it is unlikely that libraries will get significant budget increases, even after the current economic crisis is past.

Why is the Open Access movement becoming popular now?

What role can libraries and librarians play in the Open Access movement?

One of the easiest things that an academic library can do to play in the Open Access movement is to include Open Access journals in the library catalog (Suber, 2007).  The SJSU Library catalog includes many Open Access journals.  Many of these catalog records also include links to related open access resources.  The record for Open Medicine includes a link to two directories of open access journals.  The catalog record for the Public Library of Science (PLoS) includes links to PubMed Central and the Directory of Open Access Journals.  The Directory of Open Access Journals also provides journal title level metadata to assist libraries in cataloging Open Access journals.