The Latin America
Open Access Utopia
Juan Pablo Alperin
@juancommander

Simón Bolíviar

Latin America

The unity of our peoples is not the mere illusion of men,
but the inexorable decree of destiny.
— Simón Bolívar

Utopia lies at the horizon.
When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps.
If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.
What, then, is the purpose of utopia?
It makes us move forward. —Eduardo Galeano

my message...

Latin American
is our utopia

more open access
than anywhere else
over 2000 journals in DOAJ
probably over 3500 OA journals in Latindex
74% of journals in Scopus are OA
estimates as high as 95% of journals being OA

major journal
publishing initiatives
Two large publishing portals (SciELO &
RedALyC)
dozens of university and independent portals/
journals
over 2900 journals using OJS, more than any
other region
universities like USP and UNAM have Open
Access portals with over 100 journals

repositories
dozens of subject digital repositories
290 repositories in OpenDOAR
Regional project to federate repos from 9
countries: LA REFERENCIA

legislation/mandates
national OA laws in Argentina (2013), Peru
(2013), Mexico (2014)
law introduced/reintroduced in Brazil
(2007/2011)
~5% of all mandates in ROARMAP
it’s own OA declaration (Bahia)

so...
what is utopic
about it?

what’s utopic?
it’s regional
it’s cooperative
it’s publicly funded
it’s free to read and publish
it’s managed by scholars themselves

in short...
In Latin America, scholarly publications are
treated as part of a knowledge commons, where
the majority of publishing is managed through
cooperative and inclusive models by the scholarly
community.
see CLACSO’s statement in support of Open Access to knowledge as a commons

why? how? huh?
different financial incentives
high costs to print
need for visibility

it’s complicated

it may not be
possible to
replicate it

but
it’s a point on the
horizon to walk
towards

— Simón Bolívar
Do not compare your material forces with those of the enemy.
Spirit cannot be compared with matter.
You are human beings, they are beasts.
You are free, they are slaves.
Thank you.