UNM celebrates Open Access Week with film on copyright and creativity

As part of International Open Access Week, the greater Lobo community is invited to Opening the Canon: Copyright, Access and Creativity, an evening of film, conversation and discovery Oct. 22 and 23, at 7 p.m. both nights at the Guild Cinema in Albuquerque. This event is free and open to the public.

This event will explore how works move from private ownership into the public domain, and what that means for creators, educators and the public. On Wednesday, Oct. 22, Bryan Konefsky of Basement Films will guide a discussion on copyright, open access, creativity and the art of working within a canon. He will also introduce the three films. The event will conclude with an open Q&A session with Konefsky.

The three films are:

• Steamboat Willie: Mickey Mouse's first sound cartoon, newly in the public domain.
• Steamboat Bill, Jr. starting Buster Keaton, the film that inspired Disney's steamboat adventure.
• Citizen Mickey by Salise Hughes: A Basement Films gem reimagining the mouse we all know.

On Thursday, Oct. 23, the event will include only a showing of the three films, no discussion.

Opening the Canon is created through the support of the New Mexico Open Educational Resources Consortium, University Libraries, New Mexico Library Association and Basement Films, which has been around for 35 years supporting underrepresented forms of media.

International Open Access Week is an opportunity for the academic and research community to learn about the benefits of Open Access, to share what they've learned, and to inspire wider participation in making open access publishing a new norm in scholarship and research.

Open access literature is online, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Open Access Week is held every October and offers a chance to connect with the global momentum of openly sharing knowledge. This year, University Libraries, Health Sciences Library and Informatic Center, and the Law Library have teamed up to create events that shed light on Open Access all month long. Learn more about the events at the Open Access website.