Understanding what "Open Access" means
We are seeing the beginning of a new, very different publishing model for 21st century scholarship: Open Access. The following is the beginnings of a list of open access resources available for students, staff and faculty here at the University.
This recent push for open access sources holds several important implications for the future of academia. There have been increased requirements from funding agencies which ask potential grantees to specify how their data will be preserved, and potentially used in future research.
Researchers now have a number of open access options at their disposal (such as the ones we list below), yet even with this robust list, there are many materials that can only be accessed through purchase or subscription. This has been termed as the “paywall” and very often can restrict access to sources. Paywalls pose a threat to individual researchers and those associated with institutions, since they can also restrict access based on the country from which the source derives.
By embracing the direction open access data storage and sharing is taking us, we can overcome the obstacles of limited accessibility, and even data degradation over time.
The term "repositories" in this sense refer to many different online tools and modes for collecting and accessing data. Some of the repositories highlighted below are as follows:
Archives
Archives: A collection of public historical records, documents, and data.
- AMNH DSpace Digital Repository (American Museum of Natural History)"The AMNH DSpace Digital Repository is a digital archive maintained by the Research Library for AMNH Scientific Publications and materials digitized by the Library." You can browse the two collections: Research Library and Scientific Publications - or you can search by keyword or other options. Contents include: "The Anthropological Papers that include ethnographies of the 20th century, particularly on North American Indians; The Bulletin which consists of longer monographic volumes in the field of natural sciences relating to zoology, paleontology, and geology; and Memoirs which were monographic works focusing on scientific topics requiring exhaustive treatment."
- British Library Archival Sound RecordingsListen to a selection from the British Library’s extensive collections of unique sound recordings, which come from all over the world and cover the entire range of recorded sound: music, drama and literature, oral history, wildlife and environmental sounds.
Internet Archive: Nine million audio recordings - Chaco Research ArchiveThe Chaco Research Archive is an online resource providing access to a wealth of information documenting the history of archaeological research in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The archive includes material from dozens of sites excavated in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park and beyond.
- Council for the Preservation of Anthropological Records (CoPAR)The Council for the Preservation of Anthropological Records is dedicated to helping anthropologists, librarians, archivists, information specialists and others preserve and provide access to the record of human diversity and the history of the discipline.
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS)DANS's activities are centred around 3 core services: data archiving, data reusing and training & consultancy. Sharing and reusing research data promotes science. Datasets collected for a certain research purpose can also contain answers to research questions from very different research in the same or in another research discipline. Furthermore, new insights are gained by combining datasets. The availability of research data finally facilitates the reproduction of innovative research.
- the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR)"tDAR is an international digital archive and repository that houses data about archaeological investigations, research, resources, and scholarship. tDAR provides researchers new avenues to discover and integrate information relevant to topics they are studying. Users can search tDAR for digital documents, data sets, images, GIS files, and other data resources from archaeological projects spanning the globe. For data sets, users also can use data integration tools in tDAR to simplify and illuminate comparative research."
- ePrints SotonUniversity of Southampton Institutional Research Repository ePrints Soton contains an impressive and growing collection of materials in the arts, humanities and social sciences. The collection of open access materials is searchable or browsable by discipline area.
- Giza Archives"Surrounding the Giza Pyramids are thousands of ancient tombs, temples, settlements, and artifacts. Archaeological discoveries continue to this day. This website is a comprehensive resource for research on Giza. It contains photographs and other documentation from the original Harvard University - Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition (1904 to 1947), from recent MFA fieldwork, and from other expeditions, museums, and universities around the world."
- Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)Located within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, ICPSR (Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research) provides access to the world's largest archive of computerized social science data, both publicly and privately collected and published. This includes data sets for countries world wide that cover demographics and census, opinion polls, urban studies, education, economics, geography, legal systems, governments and elections, political behavior and attitudes, health care and other social indicators.
Off-campus access is available, but users must first create a free account on campus at Create a New Account in order to download data.
This resource is paid for by the Dept. of Political Science. - LingBuzz" LingBuzz is an openly accessible repository of scholarly papers, discussions and other documents for "generative" linguistics. On top of its own papers, it also aggregates papers from the semantics archive, the OT archive, etc. making them all available and searchable in one place. The ultimate goal of lingBuzz is however larger than an archive of papers: It aims at gradually becoming both a community center for generative linguistics and an experiment in semi-automated article ranking."
- Mana'oA small, but growing, searchable collection of open access materials. "In Hawaiian mana'o means thoughts, ideas, knowledge, or opinions -- when making decisions together people often ask for each other's mana'o. The Mana'o collection is a project of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa which seeks to realize this ideal by combining anthropology's concern with openness and diversity with the scholarly ideal of open access.
- OLAC: Open Language Archives Community"OLAC, the Open Language Archives Community, is an international partnership of institutions and individuals who are creating a worldwide virtual library of language resources by: (i) developing consensus on best current practice for the digital archiving of language resources, and (ii) developing a network of interoperating repositories and services for housing and accessing such resources."
- Open Grey: System for Information on Grey Literature in EuropeWith over 690,000 documents, "System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe, is your open access to 700.000 bibliographical references of grey literature (paper) produced in Europe and allows you to export records and locate the documents. Examples of grey (gray) literature include technical or research reports, doctoral dissertations, some conference papers, some official publications, and other types of grey literature. OpenGrey covers Science, Technology, Biomedical Science, Economics, Social Science and Humanities."
- PolicyArchive"PolicyArchive is an innovative, new digital archive of global, non-partisan public policy research. It makes use of the power, efficiency, and economy of modern Internet technology to collect and disseminate summaries and full texts, videos, reports, briefs, and multimedia material of think tank, university, government, and foundation-funded policy research. It offers a subject index, an internal search engine, useful abstracts, email notifications of newly added research, and will soon expand to offer information on researchers and funders, and even user-generated publication reviews. Over time, it will grow to include policy content from international and corporate organizations."
- SAHARA (Society of Architectural Historians)Access is not completely free; however you can register for limited use. "SAHARA is a digital image archive developed over the past three years by the Society of Architectural Historians in collaboration with ARTstor. SAHARA now has nearly 30,000 images that were contributed by architects, scholars, photographers, graduate students, preservationists and others who share an interest in the built world."
- University Digital Conservancy at the University of MinnesotaA digital archive of M.A. and PhD theses at the University of Minnesota. The collection in this institutional repository can also be searched by keyword, date, authors and majors.
- World Oral Literature Project"A collaboration between the University of Cambridge Museum of Archeology and Anthropology and Yale University, is a recent initiative to document and preserve oral literature around the world including ritual texts, curative chants, epic poems, musical genres, folk tales, creation tales, songs, myths, spells, legends, proverbs, riddles, tongue-twisters, word games, recitations, life histories or historical narratives." In addition to audio recordings, there are videos, photographs, and more relating to over 30 languages and the communities that speak them. The World Oral Literature Project focuses specifically on languages spoken in Asia and the Pacific; however, the collection also includes languages spoken in other regions, including Sierra Leone, Egypt, and Greenland."
Databases
Databases: A site that stores and organizes data to make it accessible to the user.( I.e. you are searching within that specific site’s collection rather than broadly across the internet)
- AbzuAbzu is a guide to networked open access data relevant to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East and the Ancient Mediterranean world.
- Archaeobotanical DatabaseThe geographic area covered by the represented in the archaeobotanical data in ADEMNES, includes Greece, Turkey, Western Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Northern Egypt. The chronological frame comprises the Epipalaeolithic up to the Medieval periods, with a special focus on the Bronze and Iron Ages. Currently archaeobotanical data from 533 archaeological sites in the focus area have been collected from publications and contributed by individual researchers The data is available for archaeobotanists, archaeologists and other interested groups. Site or taxa related queries can be conducted."
- Archaeological Data ServiceThe Archaeology Data Service supports research, learning and teaching with freely available, high quality and dependable digital resources. It does this by preserving digital data in the long term, and by promoting and disseminating a broad range of data in archaeology. The ADS promotes good practice in the use of digital data in archaeology, it provides technical advice to the research community, and supports the deployment of digital technologies. Hosted by the University of York, England.
- Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA)"The primary objectives of CESSDA are to facilitate and promote more and wider use of high-quality data in social, economic and political research and in turn, improve our understanding of ongoing societal processes, the problems involved and the solutions available. The vision of CESSDA is to provide a full scale sustainable research infrastructure that enables the research community to conduct high-quality research which in turn leads to effective solutions to the major challenges facing society today."
- DataHubThis "free, powerful data management platform from the Open Knowledge Foundation...is a tool for managing and publishing collections of data. It is used by national and local governments, research institutions, and other organisations which collect a lot of data. With its powerful search and faceting, users can browse and find the data they need, and preview it using maps, graphs and tables - whether they are developers, journalists, researchers, NGOs, citizens or your own colleagues."
- DryadDryad is an international repository of data underlying peer-reviewed articles in the basic and applied biosciences. Dryad enables scientists to validate published findings, explore new analysis methodologies, repurpose data for research questions unanticipated by the original authors, and perform synthetic studies.
- Evidence for Nature and People Data Portal"This portal features data from a systematic map on the impacts of conservation on human well-being in non-OECD nations (Bottrill et al. 2014, McKinnon et al. 2015, 2016) drawn from 1,042 peer-reviewed and grey literature. Here, you can access the knowledge management tool and various analytic dashboards for slicing the data. As we progress in our different initiatives (see RESEARCH section), we will update this dashboard with beta versions of support tools and other analytics."
- Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)This data portal of the GBIF provides international biodiversity data. Content includes species data sets; species occurrence records and information; and information on the data publishers, datasets, and data networks that share through GBIF.
- Knowledge Network for BiocomplexityThe Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB) is a national network intended to facilitate ecological and environmental research on biocomplexity. For scientists, the KNB is an efficient way to discover, access, interpret, integrate and analyze complex ecological data from a highly-distributed set of field stations, laboratories, research sites, and individual researchers.
- Media Anthropology NetworkFrom the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), thus site "aims to foster international discussion and collaboration around the anthropology of media. The network also hopes to contribute to the theoretical and empirical development of this anthropological subfield." the page provides open access to working papers, syllabi, bibliographies, conference papers and other materials. Good links, FAQs and other information.
- National Archeological DatabaseThe National Archeological Database—a computerized communications network for the archeological and historic preservation community—was established to improve access to information on archeological activities nationwide.
- Open FolkloreAn important, growing, searchable collection. "Open Folklore will become a multi-faceted resource, combining digitization and digital preservation of data, publications, educational materials, and scholarship in folklore; promoting open access to these materials; and providing an online search tool to enhance discoverability of relevant, reliable resources for folklore studies."
- Paleobiology Database (Fossilworks)"The Paleobiology Database seeks to provide researchers and the public with information about the entire fossil record. You can use the site to find out about fossil collections, individual plants and animals, taxonomic groups, references to publications, stratigraphic units, time scales, and time intervals. All of our data can be downloaded, including collection, occurrence, or specimen records, taxonomic names and opinions, measurements of specimens, and Neptune occurrences. Tools on the site also let you generate paleomaps, data summary tables, lists of common taxa, first appearances, diversity curves, ecological statistics, time scale confidence intervals, stratigraphic confidence intervals."
- Qualitative Data Repository (QDR)"The Qualitative Data Repository (QDR) is a dedicated archive for storing and sharing digital data (and accompanying documentation) generated or collected through qualitative and multi-method research in the social sciences. QDR provides search tools to facilitate the discovery of data, and also serves as a portal to material beyond its own holdings, with links to U.S. and international archives. The repository’s initial emphasis is on political science."
Forums and megasites
Forums: An online location where an individual can post digital content, and engage in discussion about said content with the online community.
Megasites: Similar to a search engine, in that it allows for more refined yet broadly sourced resources (i.e. searching across site hosted in many different countries)
- OpenDOAR: The Directory of Open Access Repositories"OpenDOAR is the quality-assured global directory of academic open access repositories. It enables the identification, browsing and search for repositories, based on a range of features, such as location, software or type of material held."
- Registry of Open Access RepositoriesCurrently indexing over 2300 repositories, "the aim of ROAR is to promote the development of open access by providing timely information about the growth and status of repositories throughout the world. Open access to research maximises research access and thereby also research impact, making research more productive and effective."
- Temple Mountain Sifting Project Unidentified Finds Research ForumFind something interesting in the field, but you aren't quite sure what it might be? Amateurs and experts alike can try their hand at analysis with this online resource.
- WorldWideScienceA global science search engine designed specifically to help speed up scientific discovery and progress by accelerating the sharing of scientific knowledge. Using Microsoft's Translator, the sites multilingual search engine offers the ability to search across databases in nine languages and retrieve translated results in the language of their choice.
Publication based sites
Publication Based Sites: These sites are open access journal and are not only peer reviewed, but also highly regarded amongst even pay access journals. Researchers can both submit their articles and manuscripts as well as access the entire repository.
- AnthroBase.com"AnthroBase is a multilingual, searchable database of articles, theses, essays, reports, conference papers, field-notes etc., written by anthropologists and others with an interest in social and cultural diversity. Authors retain copyright to their texts and may withdraw their texts from the database at any time. AnthroBase accepts texts that are concerned with documenting and understanding social and cultural diversity. Anthropological texts form the core of the collection, but we invite contributions from philosophers, historians, pedagogues, political scientists, psychologists, linguists, economists, journalists and others with appropriate interests.
- Cogprints"Welcome to CogPrints, an electronic archive for self-archive papers in any area of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Linguistics, and many areas of Computer Science (e.g., artificial intelligence, robotics, vison, learning, speech, neural networks), Philosophy (e.g., mind, language, knowledge, science, logic), Biology (e.g., ethology, behavioral ecology, sociobiology, behaviour genetics, evolutionary theory), Medicine (e.g., Psychiatry, Neurology, human genetics, Imaging), Anthropology (e.g., primatology, cognitive ethnology, archeology, paleontology), as well as any other portions of the physical, social and mathematical sciences that are pertinent to the study of cognition."
- DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals (OA)Directory of Open Access Journals covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals of all subjects and languages. There are 5625 journals in the directory. Currently 2398 journals are searchable at the article level; ~468,000 articles are included in the DOAJ service.
- ERIC (Institute of Education Sciences)This version of the ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) database is freely available on the web and provides access to education-related journal and non-journal literature. Sponsored by the US Department of Education, it provides full citations and abstracts and some full-text for journal articles, books, curricula, government documents, dissertations, reports, and other educational materials.
Access via U.S. Dept. of Ed.) - FastiOnline (FOLD&R - Fasti On Line Documents & Research)"Between 1946 and 1987 the International Association for Classical Archaeology (AIAC) published the Fasti Archaeologici. It contained very useful summary notices of excavations throughout the area of the Roman Empire. However, spiraling costs and publication delays combined to render it less and less useful. AIACs board of directors thus decided in 1998 to discontinue the publication and to seek a new way of recording and diffusing new results. The Fasti Online is the result of this effort."
- IssueLab"IssueLab's mission is to more effectively archive, distribute, and promote the extensive and diverse body of research being produced by the nonprofit sector."
- Journal of Open Archaeology Data (JOAD)The Journal of Open Archaeology Data (JOAD) features peer reviewed data papers describing archaeology datasets with high reuse potential. We work with a number of specialist and institutional data repositories to ensure that the associated data are professionally archived, preserved, and openly available. Equally importantly, the data and the papers are citable, and reuse is tracked.
- Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology - Working PapersA searchable Open Access collection of working papers from this institute going back to 2000.
- Open Anthropology Cooperative Press"The OAC Press launches the Working Papers Series to promote intellectual exchange within and outside the universities. We hope to bring what anthropologists have to say to the attention of the general public and invite everyone to take part in our debates. Each paper published will be linked to an open discussion thread in the OAC network. We will select work in progress that offers readers timely and relevant ideas and authors feedback for revision. The papers will be presented here in various formats and at several stages of their evolution. We place no restriction on publication elsewhere. The point is to refresh an ongoing conversation about anthropology and the world we live in."
- Open Context"Open Context is a free, open access resource for the electronic publication of primary field research from archaeology and related disciplines. It emerged as a means for scholars and students to easily find and reuse content created by others, which are key to advancing research and education. Open Context's technologies focus on ease of use, open licensing frameworks, informal data integration and, most importantly, data portability. Currently, we are building up an extensive and diverse body of content and exploring different ways of visualizing and remixing it."
- Propylaeum-DOK - Digital Repository Classical Studies" Propylaeum-DOK - Digital Repository Classical Studies is the full-text server of the Virtual Library of Classical Studies and is made available by the University Library of Heidelberg. It offers members of the academic community worldwide the opportunity to publish their texts in electronic format on the internet at no charge. All kinds of publications (like monographs, articles, lectures) in the fields of Classical Studies can be stored on "Propylaeum-DOK".
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS publishes peer-reviewed, open access scientific and medical journals.
- PubMed Central Article DatasetsOver four million articles from full-text biomedical and life sciences journal articles in PubMed Central are available in XML and plain text formats via Amazon Web Services.
- ReliefWeb"ReliefWeb is your source for timely, reliable and relevant humanitarian information and analysis. Our goal is to help you make sense of humanitarian crises worldwide. To do this, we scan the websites of international and non-governmental organizations, governments, research institutions and the media for news, reports, press releases, appeals, policy documents, analysis and maps related to humanitarian emergencies worldwide."
- Social Science Open Access RepositoryCurrently with over 17,000 records, "SSOAR's goal is to implement the "green road" to open access by providing users with free electronic access to journal article preprints and postprints -- our main focus -- and also to other document types. SSOAR is especially committed to the archiving and dissemination of quality-controlled texts. The repository has been certified by DINI, the German Initiative for Networked Information (DINI certificate 2007). The DINI certificate confirms our compliance with formal and technical standards and quality criteria for open-access repositories."
- Social Science Research NetworkSocial Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences. The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts on over 197,700 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers (preprints) and an Electronic Paper Collection containing downloadable full text documents in Adobe Acrobat pdf format. SSRN was acquired by Elsevier in 2016.
Embracing digital material in all medias
The sources that have been mentioned thus far focus on documents and written records, yet in so many disciplines data comes in multiple forms. Below are two resources that house video, audio, images, as well as 3d models and are open access
- Digital Content LibraryThe Digital Content Library (DCL) consists of around 300,000 items from teaching and research collections across the University of Minnesota. Support is provided for just about any digital file format including images, videos, audio, 3-D objects, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDFs.
Note: This is a licensed resource only available to current UMN students, faculty, and staff. - SketchfabA site targeted on open accessibility of 3D models. Offers users the ability to explore existing models, or upload and store their own.
- UMN Anthropology Labs: Digital ResourcesThe Anthropology Labs have research concentrations in lithic technology, primatology, zooarchaeology, taphonomy, three-dimensional modeling, and phytoliths. Projects involving EAL researchers have occurred around the globe, including Kenya, Tanzania, the Republic of Georgia, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Uzbekistan, Ireland, Israel, Bolivia, and the south eastern US.
Last Updated: Aug 15, 2024 3:14 PM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/AnthropologyOpenAccessGuide