Collecting Catholic Open Access Religion Journals

Abstract

One way that librarians can do more with less is by adding open access (OA) journals to their library’s holdings. But how does one identify and evaluate what is available? In his Atla Annual 2021 Listen and Learn session titled “Open Access Religious Resources for your Students,” Jeff Siemon shared his collection of approximately 800 OA religion journals. Siemon inspired me to create my own collection of Catholic OA religion journals, which I presented later that year at the Catholic Library Association’s Fall Conference. Nearly four years later, my collection has more than doubled. I describe how I found these journals, highlighting specific journal indexes, including a comparison between the Directory of Open Access Journals and Atla RDB. I also present updated analyses of journals by continent and country, by language, and by subject, highlighting remarkable trends.