Share and share alike

It has often been said that research is about “standing on the shoulders of giants”, what has been done before is of fundamental importance to new discoveries.

Crucial to this is access to research – a subject that has been in the news recently with Wellcome Trust’s decision to launch an open access e-journal eLife,  and to adopt a more robust approach with the research it funds, to ensure that results are freely available within six months of publication.

Paul Allen of the Allen Institute for Brain Science also published an article about open access and the Institute’s mission “to spark breakthroughs”, not wanting “to exclude underfunded neuroscientists who just might be the ones to make the next leap” (Wall Street Journal 30 November 2011). The Institute now “generate[s] data for the purpose of sharing it”.

In the Library we are keen to promote the research which stems from our grants. Whilst we don’t have the resources of the Wellcome Trust etc we do what we can.

Recently we have been busy adding the references of published articles written by grant holders to the library catalogue.  They can be found by searching by keyword in the usual way or by selecting ‘Trust funded projects’ and then clicking on the type of grant.    The Library also provides access to journals through our, subsidised, library membership scheme.

We hope that this means that we are doing our bit, however small, to advance new discoveries to benefit animal health.

Of course none of us know where the open access debate and the  current ‘academic spring’ (as it has been termed) will go, or how it will affect people like Hannah  one of our recent grant holders.  But we will keep watching to see whether a tide of change really is in the offing or if it will just slowly ebb away

If you would like to find out more about any of our grant holders’ research, please get in touch.

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