OU Libraries Monthly Feature: Profiles in Open Featuring Denise Stephens

“Profiles in Open” regularly features OU scholars who advocate for open access and make their work openly accessible, benefitting authors, readers, funders, the public, and others. Check out this month’s profile of Denise Stephens.

Denise Stephens is the Peggy V. Helmerich Dean of University Libraries at the University of Oklahoma. Prior to joining OU as dean in 2021, she was university librarian at Washington University in St. Louis and UC Santa Barbara, and she has held positions at the University of Kansas, Syracuse University, and the University of Virginia. Her accomplishments have included overseeing the large-scale renovation and expansion of library collaboration and study spaces, delivering innovative solutions to diverse and evolving scholar communities, and launching collaborative initiatives to promote academic success.

Dean Stephens’ current research interests are focused on measuring the impact of research libraries on the academic community. She has published in the Journal of Library Administration and the Journal of Academic Librarianship, and presented widely. Her 2022 work, “Developing Prospective Interim and Future Academic Library Leaders: Reflections for Leadership Practice,” was published in Interim Leadership in Libraries: Building Relationships, Making Decisions, and Moving On, and is openly available in SHAREOK, OU’s institutional repository.

Why is open access important to you?

I am deeply aware of the duty to ensure that we facilitate and provide access to scholarship supporting the vast range of research and instruction in the research university setting. The current scholarly communication ecosystem is so dominated by paywalled access to scholarship – even that created and funded on our campuses – that we are increasingly challenged to do that job. Significant and frequent fee increases, as well as increasing restrictive barriers to electronic information are present real barriers to the full range of scholarship our faculty and students need. As an academic librarian and library leader, I believe this condition inhibits our ability to meet the needs of our scholar community.

Why do you think open access is important to the OU community?

Greater awareness about open access as a choice for disseminating published scholarship may influence more of our knowledge creators to participate in open access publishing. That outcome is admittedly a work in progress requiring time and growing communities of faculty and student scholars to adopt open access (at least some of the time). In the short-term, openly accessible research and educational materials can make a positive impact on costs for both the institution and students. To be clear, there is a great deal of work to do before open access becomes a large part of disseminating scholarship. Nevertheless, it is a growing movement among universities around the world. For-profit providers are even starting to find ways to enable open access as an option for authors, though there are costs for participating. That’s where we here at OU are working to help mitigate those publishing fees for authors interested in participating.

Would you encourage others to publish open access? If so, why?

I have published open access and I encourage others to publish open access. Understandably, there are questions and sometimes real inhibitors to doing so. Yet the benefit of open publishing is considerable. Research has consistently shown that openly published scholarship is accessed and cited often because restrictions are removed and there is trust in the authority of the work. Also, removing barriers to accessing the range of research outcomes is simply good for expanding the range of scholarly information we can obtain with limited financial resources.

Do you have any specific advice for scholars who want to make their work openly available?

Be open to the idea. Feel free to consult with your liaison librarians about open publishers in your field. Finally, be aware of opportunities to participate in OU-sponsored open publishing programs. As always, the University Libraries is a wonderful place to start.