The Osgoode Library continues to commemorate Open Access Week. Today's blog post looks at the the growth of law journals that are available through open access. 

In 2019, Sharona Brookman, Osgoode Library Reference Librarian compiled a list of Canadian law journals in “Open Access to Canadian legal journals expanding”. Law journals available on open access continue to grow.This development is very helpful to researchers globally especially during an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic. With the emergence of new learning environments and new normal in academia, having journals easily accessible, not behind the paywall is very important. 

The following are links to a non-exhausting list of sources of open access legal journals and scholarship covering Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States: 

• Australian Scholarship Library: This is a link from AustLII which provides access to academic and professional law journals originating from Australia and New Zealand. 
• CanLII: One of the uniqueness of CanLII is that it has evolved from being just a website for accessing cases and legislation; in the last one year it has grown by adding more law school and professional journals.  
• LawArXiv: A repository of legal journals supported by the Centre for Open Science. 

• Law Reviews Commons: This is an archive of over 300 law reviews and journals of law schools in Canada and the United States hosted on the BePress platform. 
• LSE Research Online: Repository of the London School of Economics and Political Science 
• Web Journal of Current Legal Issues: This is one of the first UK journals that was made available on open access. It’s archived on the BAILII website. 

Note also that some of the subscription-based databases are making open access content available on their platforms. You will find an icon indicating that the material is open access.