Summer 2018 Project Review: PCI's Open Access Collections for Community and Technical Colleges

Abstract

This presentation recaps a 2018 review of all non-restricted/open access (OA) databases in the Primo Central Index (PCI) for relevance within a consortium of community and technical college (CTC) libraries.
Librarians from Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWTech) in Kirkland, Washington led the effort, in conjunction with a dozen additional CTC librarians across Washington State.
This presentation includes:

A history of the project, including complimentary initiatives and commitments to a culture of open across Washington state, and the relationship between those commitments and Community and Technical Colleges
Criteria used to evaluate Primo, the PCI, and the databases themselves, via their own interfaces, and the design of their content
Explorations/proposals for future librarian-led reviews
Implications of the PCI as a tool for open pedagogy and the benefits of the PCI for the Culture of Open
Explorations and discussion on the diversity of materials available in these databases, including openly-licensed eBooks, and related instructional implications
Suggestions for a more intentionally-descriptive PCI administrative interface and community-centered communications on PCI content

This effort represents the second, but by no means last, iteration of a PCI OA review organized by the Washington CTC librarians. The current work has inspired additional conversations on benefits of the OA collections to CTC communities, as well as issues of equity, such as standards of database accessibility, design functionality, and definitions of open access.