Open Access Resources

The faculty and staff of Pratt Institute Libraries believe that Open Access to scholarship is critical for scholarly communication, the future of libraries more generally, and advancing the library’s mission of providing outstanding service and access to a resource-rich environment that facilitates critical thinking, and creative teaching and learning in the Pratt community. The Libraries pledge to support and promote open access scholarship, resources, and services. In supporting the spread of knowledge outside of strict paywalls of traditional scholarly publishing structures, the Libraries commit to collecting robust Open Access resources as described in the Electronic Resources Evaluation Policy and Collection Development Policy. By promoting resources that are free and open access, the Libraries' further their commitment to advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, as these resources will continue to be accessible to students after graduation, as well as being decoupled from traditional academic silos.

This pledge builds upon the Libraries’ practices/programs centering access to digital and digitized scholarly resources and services such as the collection of Pratt community records in its Archives, promotion of open educational resources, collection of theses and dissertations and future development of an institutional repository. 

To learn more about Open Access and explore free online resources  promoted by the Libraries please consult this dedicated research guide. A selection of Open Access resources are also available on the Database directory. 

The Libraries encourages users to recommend open access resources for inclusion in the collection. To do this please reach out to eresources.library@pratt.edu with your suggestions.

Sample Policies

The Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP) is a searchable international registry charting the growth of open access mandates adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders that require their researchers to provide open access to their peer-reviewed research article output by depositing it in an open access repository.

HathiTrust is a collaborative digital library, a partnership of academic and research institutions that work together to preserve and provide access to digitized books, journals, and other materials. The name "Hathi" (pronounced "hah-tee") is derived from the Hindi word for "elephant," an animal renowned for its the strength, size, and long-term memory. The Pratt Institute Libraries became a member of HathiTrust in Summer 2022.

MIT Press Direct to Open is an initiative launched by the MIT Press in 2021 to make a selection of their books freely available to read online. The initiative is part of the MIT Press's broader commitment to open access and aims to increase access to high-quality scholarship for readers around the world. The Pratt Institute Libraries began a three year commitment to MIT's D20 program in Spring 2022.

"Punctum Books, founded in Brooklyn, New York in 2011, and now incorporated in Santa Barbara, California as a public benefit corporation co-directed by Eileen A. Fradenburg Joy and Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, is an independent queer- and scholar-led, community-formed, and peer-reviewed Sparkly Diamond open-access book (OA) publisher devoted to academic and para-academic authors working in any field in the humanities, social sciences, fine arts, and architecture & design who want to publish books that are genre-queer and genre-bending and which take experimental risks with the forms and styles of intellectual writing."

Pratt Institute Libraries has been a support member of Punctum since 2020 and we're proud to showcase these publications from our catalog in observance of our "Pratt and Punctum" program. This book carousel also includes books from our collection featuring the work of Marina Zurkow, a multimedia artist and scholar who participated in that event.   

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC*) is a global alliance of academic and research libraries that promotes open access to research and education resources. SPARC* works to support policies and initiatives that promote the dissemination of scholarly research in ways that are more accessible, equitable, and affordable for everyone. The Pratt Institute Libraries have been a member since Spring 2022.