KU Libraries accepting nominations for 5th annual open access award

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Libraries are now accepting nominations for the fifth annual Shulenburger Award for Innovation & Advocacy in Scholarly Communication. The award will be granted for exceptional efforts to advance innovations in open sharing and advocacy for positive change in the scholarly communication system.

Up to two awardees will be selected from nominations of KU Lawrence faculty/staff members and/or undergraduate or graduate students involved in a faculty-sponsored project. KU Lawrence academic departments, research centers and schools are also eligible for the award.

• Awards will be between $500 and $2,500.
• The individual awardee may be invited to serve a term on KU's Open Access Advisory Board.

Any individual or unit affiliated with KU may nominate an individual, department, school or center that demonstrates excellence in this area. Self-nominations are also accepted. A selection committee, consisting of the previous year's winner, KU Lawrence faculty from multiple disciplines and chaired by senior library administrators, will be appointed annually by the dean of KU Libraries to review nominations and make recommendations for final approval by the dean. The winner(s) will be announced during events at KU during International Open Access Week in October 2018.

Additional information about the award, including judging criteria and requested nomination materials, can be found at openaccess.ku.edu/shulenburgeraward.

The nomination deadline is noon Sept. 17. Please submit requested nomination materials to Josh Bolick, scholarly communication librarian, at jbolick@ku.edu.

Since the 1990s, former KU Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor David Shulenburger has advocated, locally and nationally, for open access to the results of research. His efforts to push for innovation and greater equity in the access to scholarly endeavors led to campuswide conversations between an ever-growing number of faculty supporters and the development of infrastructures to support open access to the scholarly literature published at KU. This long history seeded the growth of widespread faculty support, leading to the 2005 launch of KU ScholarWorks and the development of the Digital Publishing Services (both managed by KU Libraries), a Faculty Senate resolution in support of better dissemination practices and ultimately the passage of the Faculty Senate’s Open Access Policy in 2009.