Open Access (OA) Movement in the Libraries of Bangladesh: A Study

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to explore current trends of the open access (OA) movement in the libraries of Bangladesh in the light of librarians' perceptions. A structured questionnaire was designed to collect data from 20 respondent libraries selected purposively. The result of the study shows that the mean value of the concept of open access as “literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” is jointly highest (x̅=4.25) with the definition given by Budapest Open Access Initiative, which indicates “agree” in the Likert scale. Fifty percent of the respondent librarians remarked that proper depositing guidelines are necessary for submitting researchers' works into the institutional repositories (x̅=4.10, σ=1.12). More than half of the respondents (55%) strongly agreed that libraries should implement OA initiative due to “support for development” (x̅=4.50, σ=0.61) as the libraries don't have sufficient funds (x̅=4.50, σ=0.61).