Ask Latin American Librarian
Open Access in Latin America
Open Access has dramatically increased in Latin America over the past decade. Latin American Open Access Initiatives have taken several forms including multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal portals, national and regional theses and dissertation portals, subject digital repositories and institutional repositories. (Overview Of Oa in Latin America and the Caribbean: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/portals-and-platforms/goap/access-by-region/latin-america-and-the-caribbean/.Retrived 7 May 2020.)
Below is a list of four of the most important of Latin America's Open Access Initiatives:
Redalyc (Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y El Caribe, España y Portugal) is a bibliographic database and a digital library of Open Access journals, supported by the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México.
Scientific Electronic Library Online (Scielo) is a bibliographic database, digital library, and cooperative electronic publishing model of open access journals. SciELO was created to meet the scientific communication needs of developing countries and provides an efficient way to increase visibility and access to scientific literature. Originally established in Brazil in 1997, today there are 16 countries in the SciELO network and its journal collections: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela
Latindex (Sistema Regional de Información en Línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina, el Caribe, España y Portugal) is a bibliographical information system available for free consultation. Established as a network in 1997, the project is based on the cooperation of 17 national resource centers that operate in a coordinated scheme for the gathering and dissemination of relevant information and data on the Iberoamerican journals.
La Referencia (La Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) is a Latin American network of open access repositories. Through its services, it supports national Open Access strategies in Latin America through a platform with interoperability standards, sharing and giving visibility to the scientific production generated in institutions of higher education and scientific research.