By Alfred Fry and Merrill Stein

In honor of International Open Access Week, October 24-30 take a moment to familiarize yourself with another one of the many Falvey Memorial Library efforts to promote and support open access to knowledge. In addition to efforts like the Affordable Materials Project, Falvey Memorial Library has been funding open access article publication through the Scholarly Open Access Reseve (SOAR) Fund initiative. Over the past seven years, the SOAR fund and Committee has fully or partially funded more than 70 articles.

One example of those efforts is the publication of a study on the intersection of social behavior, population health, and inherited traits led by M. Louise Fitzpatrick School of Nursing’s own Bridgette M. (Brawner) Rice, PhD, MDiv, APRN and Founder & Director, Research for Equity and Justice Collective (REJC).

In a brief conversation, Ms. Rice addressed the study by indicating that “My personal mission is to use research as an advocacy tool to promote equity and justice in health. This study advances our understanding of how the neighborhoods where people live, work, age, worship and play can increase their risk for cardiovascular disease. And by doing it in partnership with our key community of young adult Black men, we are able to elevate their voices and have their stories told, in their own words, to bring about real change.”

She added, “It’s so great to be in a University community that values and supports open access publications. This helps ensure that more people have access to our insights and discoveries, making a more equitable dissemination platform.”

By providing SOAR funds, Falvey Memorial Library extends current research beyond a subscription-based community, to the practitioner and public information consumer alike.

To learn more about SOAR and apply for funding, go to https://library.villanova.edu/about-falvey/library-initiatives/open.  Questions can also be directed to soar@villanova.edu.

Merrill Stein is Political Science Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library. Alfred Fry is Science and Engineering Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.