Launching the OLH Advocacy Network

In 2018 the OLH launched the EmpowOA programme, designed to provide scholars and librarians working in the humanities with tools, spaces and cogent arguments about open access. Visitors to the website can now make use of a collection of advocacy resources and read our new Open Insights series featuring interviews and opinion pieces from a rich variety of scholars and librarians within the humanities OA communities. As part of this initiative we have also been arranging a series of Twitter chats to explore the topics of the blog posts. Many of you have been part of the initiative already!

We are in the process of translating some of these resources and have recently added a Spanish version of the poster, infographics, OLH conference presentation and Glossary of OA terms to the website. We are also planning to add multilingual content to our bibliography.

The OLH advocacy network is another step in building a community around OA and the scholarly commons. It is a new space where OA ECRs, scholars, editors, librarians, or information specialists can have a conversation, share information, propose new initiatives and provide feedback. 

The goals of the advocacy network are as follows:

1.To create a forum for discussion on Slack for interested members to raise important issues, discuss future advocacy initiatives, propose resources and act as a focus group for new ideas;

2.to facilitate future local OLH initiatives and share information about upcoming events where an OLH presence would be desirable;

3.to propose topical issues for new interviews and twitter chats, as well as other initiatives to discuss important issues in humanities OA advocacy; and

4.to share knowledge between a diverse group with a wide range of expertise and act as a springboard for further future cooperation on OA advocacy.

If you would like to be part of our network, please follow this link to join our workspace on Slack, where the OLH Advocacy Coordinator James Smith will be coordinating together with the OLH Marketing Officer, Paula Clemente Vega.

We welcome suggestions about potential network members, and proposals for activities beyond the scope outlines above. If you are interested in being a part of what we’re building, then let us know by completing this expression of interest form. 

We look forward to hearing from you!