By Barry Shell

John Willinsky, a pioneering open-access advocate who founded and still directs the internationally acclaimed Public Knowledge Project (PKP), is the SFU Library’s new Distinguished Scholar in Residence.

The PKP, which has been based at SFU since 2005, produces free downloadable software for creating, managing and publishing peer-reviewed academic monographs or journals.

The non-profit research initiative, which stems from Willinsky’s philosophy that knowledge should be free, has placed the SFU Library at the forefront of e-publishing throughout the world.

Willinsky’s collaborators on the project include Brian Owen, associate university librarian for technological services and special collections, Rowland Lorimer, director of SFU’s Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, and communication professor Richard Smith.

With assistance from contract programmers, the team has developed a suite of free publishing tools including Open Journal Systems, Open Conference Systems, Open Harvester Systems, and the PKP Web Application Library. Users around the world have installed the tools and SFU hosts more than 350 international academic journals on its servers.

Owen, who is PKP’s managing director, says Willinsky’s appointment formalizes a very productive relationship.

“In 2005 when we started, there were about 250 known installations of Open Journal Systems,” says Owen. “As of January 2012, that number has passed 11,500 and appears to be growing at the rate of seven to 10 new sites every day.”

The software is as powerful as any commercial solution, is compatible with international standards and is all created in open source so that programmers anywhere can make changes.

Willinsky will continue to collaborate on new ideas while serving as a distinguished scholar and limited term professor through 2014, says Lorimer. And he’ll continue to revolutionize the scholarly publishing system, eliminating its dependence on commercial publishers.

“With PKP it’s already possible to build in sound, movie and image files,” says Lorimer. “Now we are working on mobile applications.”