Poet's Corner

Among all the important OA Week activities, there was some fun too. Here is the winner of the SHERPA Haiku ‘Spirit of Open Access’ Competition:

Set your research free
As flowers offer nectar
To the passing bee

Congratulations to Miggie Pickton, University of Northampton, UK!

And here are a few of the runners-up:

Like birds, authors' rights
fly away from their control
never to return
Nancy Stimson, University of California, San Diego

A candle under
a bushel is wasted light
try open access
Rob Szarka, szarka.org

Empowerment comes
To those who share their knowledge
With the world beyond
Allison Brown, University of Otago, New Zealand

Enlightenment is
The addition of full text
To metadata
Neil Stewart, LSE, UK

Opening access
connected and well-informed
research moves forward
Jon Mason, InterCog

The locked door opens
And brilliant autumn sunlight
Pours into the room.
Padraig Manning, HSE Ireland

Help barriers fall
Repositories blossom
An open age dawns
Jessie and Tony Hey, University of Southampton and Microsoft Research

Hard discoveries
Should not perish, closed, within
a domain price-locked.
Hélène LeBlanc, Rogers Communications

OA is worldwide
bringing scholars together
and spreading their words
Nancy Stimson, University of California, San Diego

In the autumn rains
open access means no trudge
to the library
Kate Hodgson, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

And another that wasn’t in the runners-up list:

Gold leaves float down

secured in OA silos –

research advances

And a limerick to encourage deposit in IRs:

A geneticist working in Lima

Found a gene to zap helicobacter.

He made it OA

And before you could say

Jack was made a Distinguished Professor.

Enjoy!