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The purpose of this paper is to examine Nigerian academics' adoption of open access initiatives as authors and readers of scholarly resources. The study was necessitated by the growing need to have the number of Nigerian scholarly publications increased on the internet and accessible to scholars around the world through the use of open access initiatives.

Academics of two first generation Nigerian universities selected using convenient sampling technique were surveyed using the questionnaire to find out the extent of their awareness and use of open access initiatives as authors and readers of scholarly works. Two hundred and fifty questionnaire copies were distributed in the two universities out of which 189 copies were returned, while 180 copies were found to be useable for the study.

It was revealed that the respondents were aware of the pre‐print and open access journal initiatives than the post‐print initiative. In terms of the use of open access initiatives, although the study revealed insignificant use among the academics, academics in sciences showed more promise of adopting open access initiative as authors and readers of scholarly resources than their counterparts in the humanities.

Unlike studies that assessed specific subject based and institutional repositories that allowed for the search and extraction of depositors' names and characteristics, this particular study relied on respondents' responses as a source of their actual use of open access repositories.

This paper reveals that academics' perception and publishing culture, and not awareness, determines the extent of their use of open access initiatives in Nigeria.

The open access movement has become the center of discussion during the last decade. Open access publishing facilitates researchers' and scientists' access to research literature through the internet free of cost. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the awareness of open access publishing among researchers and faculty members of Indian institutions, and to evaluate the development of open access initiatives in India.

This study is based on both primary and secondary sources of data. For studying awareness of open access publishing, a survey was conducted among the researchers of IITs and IIMs in July‐August 2012 by using a closed ended questionnaire. The growth of open access initiatives in India is analyzed through data collected from secondary sources, i.e. the websites of Ulrich's, DOAJ, ROAR, and OpenDOAR.

The results showed that India's contribution has increased in the last few years. It was found that the awareness about such open access information sources and initiatives among the research community is increasing.

This study will assist in understanding the practices of open access publishing in India.

The paper aims to focus on the current state of open access (OA) initiatives in Zimbabwean universities. The paper specifically reports the initiatives at Zimbabwean universities regarding institutional repositories that promote OA and other digital OA collections.

A qualitative research methodology was adopted. Questionnaires were used as the primary data collection method for this research. The research sought to address the following specific areas: the state of institutional repositories and open access in Zimbabwe, the discoverability of content, open access policies and mandates, the benefits of open access in Zimbabwe, and future plans for institutional OA. A total of eight out of 12 universities responded to the questionnaire. The data provided by the universities involved in the research were summarised to give a general picture of the open access landscape in Zimbabwe.

The current initiatives in the universities involved in this survey indicate that most universities in Zimbabwe are going to have institutional repositories that promote open access to information. Most institutions in Zimbabwe are already working on putting open access policies in place in a bid to promote open access.

The research will shed more light on the status quo of open access initiatives in Zimbabwe, particularly with regards to institutional repositories, open access policies and open access mandates.

The environments of the library under open access (OA) are distinctively found as less expensive which ultimately reciprocates better services and technological support for the users as well. Focussing on the Librarians’ perspective, the purpose of the study is to highlight and establish a balance between the vision of OA initiatives and the support of Librarians in India. The principal and philosophy of the study are based upon the exploration of open source initiatives and their significance among the Library & Information Science community.

The study reflects the historical perspective of OA in India and around the world. The study further focusses on how the OA movement has taken a leap in adaptability by the librarians on the basis of acceptance model given. Considering the reviews of the librarians, the study reflects the librarians support OA initiatives in India. OA is a “provocation to thought”, it is a “social contract”.

Exploring beyond the researchers have come across that OA is a belief where knowledge evolves best when shared. Based on the acceptance the study given significant. It describes the librarian’s attitude while embracing the OA model with an increased acceptance towards OA, which supports in building Institutional Repositories and broadening the research horizons based on budgetary implications. The librarians and libraries adopt and work to build up a resilient model for OA to bring out awareness among the users.

The scope of the study is limited to Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The focus of the study is purposely laid down on the three given states of India keeping in mind Delhi being a capital city of India, Uttar Pradesh being the largest state of India (area wise) and Haryana state, which opened up multiple educational opportunities for the students and researchers Rajiv Gandhi Educational city plans to host many educational institutions including medical and engineering institutions.

The study describes the librarian’s attitude while embracing the OA model with an increased acceptance towards the OA, which supports in building Institutional Repositories and broadening the research horizons based on budgetary implications. The librarians and libraries adopt and work to build up a resilient model for OA to bring out awareness among the users.

The present study brings out the need of different policies and mandates by Government of India for OA along with University Grants Commission, National Knowledge Commission and Research Organisation to promote the culture of OA. The study further recommends that LIS communities come together and build the learning culture to promote limitless sharing of information and knowledge for scholarly society.

This research work aims to make a difference in highlighting the librarians’ support on OA initiatives in India due to the role of librarians on transitional point. Dissemination and management of information using digital technology during pandemic have had a significant impact on divided environment. With this paradigm shift, the world struggles with the pandemic. The librarians try to keep themselves in pace by embracing the technology and LIS professionals do adopt the radical reventure the info technology.

The purpose of this paper is to present various aspects of open access that are being discussed and debated in recent years.

The paper briefly reviews the flavors such as open access definitions, open access initiatives, platforms for open access, and players in the open access movement.

The paper finds that, while the debates on open access continue, there is no doubt that librarians can play an important role to help achieve faster and wider dissemination of research discoveries and new knowledge of which they have been disseminators and keepers for centuries.

The article may help readers further their understanding of the complexity of open access and raise awareness on some of the key points.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the current status of open access initiatives in Turkey.

The author has conducted extensive research on the subject, which is supplemented by his own professional experience with resource sharing activities in Turkey.

Turkish libraries first ventured into the open access arena in late 2005 and have since made great strides by implementing dozens of institutional repositories and a national thesis center as well. Open access has a bright future in Turkey because of its promise for eliminating barriers to scientific information and reducing the costs of scholarly publication.

The author is one of a small cadre of experts on resource sharing and open access efforts in Turkey.

The paper aims to present a wide range of useful freely available internet resources (e.g. directories, e‐journals, FAQs, mailing lists, and weblogs) that allow the reader to investigate the major aspects of the important open access (OA) movement.

The internet resources included in this webliography were identified during the course of one of the authors writing the Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E‐prints and Open Access Journals. The authors evaluated, selected, categorized, and annotated these resources to construct this webliography, which complements the bibliography.

The most useful resources have been annotated and organized into webliography sections. For example, the “Starting Points”, “Debates”, and “General Information” sections list resources that orient the reader to OA and the issues involved. The different “Directories (and Guides)” sections alert the reader to useful finding aids on relevant subjects.

This webliography provides easy access to the most relevant internet resources for understanding and practicing OA. It affirms the significance of OA in scholarly communication, and it identifies the key parties involved in and/or contributing to the OA movement.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the relationship between open access and academic institutions, as well as the initiatives that spring from this relationship with a mainly European geographical focus.

The paper describes the main European initiatives and collaborations in the area of open access that have been university‐driven so far.

The strength of many universities is in leading many national European initiatives, and collaborations by universities that aim to provide open access to research output, scientific publications and student theses and dissertations. Individual university efforts are the ones that pioneer in software and application development. International agreements and declarations are also signed by university representatives in order to promote open access and the close bond between higher education and open access.

The paper describes the latest developments regarding the promotion of open access in European universities and the collaborations that they form. Smaller countries can benefit from these examples. E‐theses projects are estimated to lead the next pan‐European projects related to open access.

This paper seeks to review the archiving initiatives of scientific journals created and supported by various organizations or institutions.

A review of nine archiving initiatives including JSTOR, Portico, E‐Print Repositories, Open Access Model, LOCKSS, OCLC Digital Archive, JISC PubMed Central and KB e‐Depot was carried out. The paper focuses mainly on the initiatives by employing an analytical approach.

There is a wide range of archiving initiatives around the world, making it difficult for the author to carry out a comprehensive review. Nevertheless, limiting its focus to the nine existing initiatives, this paper provides a useful overview.

The paper provides a useful starting‐point to anyone who wants to know about the archiving for posterity of scientific electronic journals and enables people to quickly achieve an overview of the existing archiving initiatives to date.

The purpose of this research project is to explore the impact of open access initiatives on biomedical research scientific publishing and scholarly communication in Greece.

The paper presents the preliminary findings from a longitudinal study that uses bibliometrics, questionnaire surveys and interviews to examine knowledge, awareness and attitudes towards open access.

Open access models vary considerably. The bibliometric research indicates that Greek biomedical publication is increasing, but that coverage of Greek medical journals in databases such as MEDLINE is decreasing. The picture is mixed with some evidence of open access journals (published in English) from Greek publishing bases. Awareness of open access among Greek biomedical scientists in date was comparatively low (58 per cent aware, n=70).

Several Greek medical journals are published in English, and it is difficult to track the authorship for Greek researchers publishing in English language journals published elsewhere. Findings are preliminary as this is a longitudinal survey.

Open access initiatives may privilege researchers from the English speaking world – or those in low income countries. Researchers from countries not in those categories may face unrecognised disadvantages in making their research visible.

This is the only study of Greek biomedical publishing, and comparisons are being made with similar studies of Spanish biomedical publishing.