"'Who Owns Our Knowledge?' is the theme for this year’s International Open Access Week (October 20-26). The 2025 theme asks a pointed question about the present moment and how, in a time of disruption, communities can reassert control over the knowledge they produce."
More information on the OA Week website.
On this page, we have listed out Open Access events happening in academic libraries across the country. All events are free, though some do require that you register. This is by no means a comprehensive list of what events are happening around the world!
Open Access 2025 Events
Who Owns Our Knowledge? The Future of Equitable Open Access
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EDT
Who truly owns the knowledge we create? As open access grows, so do concerns about commercialization, AI exploitation, and inequitable participation. This webinar will explore how to design open access models that center community ownership, protect against extractive practices, and amplify marginalized voices. Panelists will share strategies for balancing openness with privacy and consent, ensuring a future where knowledge is not only free to access but also ethically and equitably shared.
Panel Presentation: Publishing an Open Access Journal with JMU Libraries
2pm-3pm EDT
Learn about open access publishing efforts at JMU by attending this panel discussion. Hear from current and former editors of the International Journal on Responsibility, as well as faculty and staff from the Libraries' Data and Scholarly Communications department, about the collaborative processes involved in creating, publishing, and sustaining a peer-reviewed journal.
Help us celebrate Open Access Week and ease into JMU Fall Break with this informative discussion.
Refreshments will be provided!
Panelists:
- Dr Heather Scheuerman, Justice Studies
- Sylvia Whitney Beitzel, Mahatma Gandhi Center
- Howard Carrier, JMU Libraries
- Mark Lane, JMU Libraries
- Becca Kruse, JMU Libraries
More info: This panel will be a hybrid event, offered in both Rose Library room 3311 and on Zoom.
Panel: Who Owns Our Knowledge Infrastructures? Emerging Scholarly Publishing Platforms and Outputs
12pm-1pm EDT
Scholarly publishing is changing. New platforms and models—from modular “micropublications” to community-owned infrastructure—are challenging traditional modes of publication and raising new questions about ownership, equity, and sustainability. This panel brings together leading scholars and publishing technologists to share how these changes might transform research creation, dissemination, and evaluation.
Panelists:
- Dr. Alexandra Freeman (Director of Octopus)
- Adam Hyde (Founder and Principal Architect, Coko)
- Jennifer Trueblood (Ruth N. Halls Professor of Cognitive Science and Psychological & Brain Sciences, and Director, Cognitive Science Program, IU)
- Moderator: Nate Howard (Program Manager for Digital Scholarship, Institute for Advanced Study, IU)
Panel: The Case for University-Based Publishing - Models, Missions, and Momentum
1-2:30pm EST
As commercial scholarly publishing consolidates and costs continue to rise, universities are working to regain control over how scholarship is disseminated, maintained, and acquired. This panel will examine the promise and challenges of university-based publishing—from university presses to library publishing programs and beyond.
Panelists will discuss:
- How university-based publishing differs from commercial models, and why this distinction matters for equity, sustainability, and the future of scholarship
- University presses today: challenges, opportunities, initiatives, and strategies for thriving
- What is library publishing, why libraries publish, and how library publishing advances access and equity
- Funding models and sustainability for university-based publishing
- How faculty, libraries, universities, and university presses can collaborate to build more equitable, community-owned scholarly communication systems
We Are Enough: Practical Open Access for Everyone
11am-12:30pmEDT
Please join the Penn State University Libraries for a panel discussion with three thought leaders in the field:
Dr. Samuel Moore, Scholarly Communication Specialist at Cambridge University Library, one of the organizers of the Radical Open Access Collective, and author of the forthcoming book Publishing Beyond the Market: Open Access, Care and the Commons.
Sarah Lamdan, Deputy Directory of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and author of the widely acclaimed book Data Cartels.
Peter Suber, author of the seminal monograph Open Access and a leading theorist of the Open Access movement.
The theme of the panel discussion is “We Are Enough: Practical Open Access for Everyone.” Whether you’re a faculty member, a researcher, an independent scholar, a student, a librarian or library worker, or someone working in the publishing industry, we hope you’ll join us for this event, which is free and open to the public.
Open for All: Knowledge Commons, KCWorks, and the Future of Open Access
10am EST
Join us for a webinar exploring KCWorks, an open repository platform designed to support collaborative creation, sharing, and stewardship of open knowledge. In the spirit of Open Access Week, this session will introduce participants to the features of the Knowledge Commons, demonstrate how KCWorks empowers communities to contribute and curate content, and highlight real-world examples of uploads to the repository. Whether you're an educator, researcher, student, or open education advocate, you'll leave with practical tools and inspiration for contributing to a more open and inclusive knowledge ecosystem.
Who Owns Our Knowledge? Scholar-Led Infrastructures and the Future of Publishing
12:30-2pm EDT
Keynote by Dr. Juan Pablo Alperin (Simon Fraser University; Public Knowledge Project)
What would happen if Google Scholar were to vanish tomorrow? For many researchers, it has become the default gateway to academic literature, yet its dominance also exposes vulnerabilities in how knowledge is discovered and accessed. This presentation will discuss how the proliferation of open access journals, led by scholars and published out of universities from around the world, is challenging publishing models, reshaping access to knowledge, and redefining the global landscape of scholarly communication. It concludes with a call to strengthen and sustain scholar-led publishing infrastructures—so that access to knowledge is secured by the academic community itself, not left at the mercy of corporate platforms.