Who we are, what we do, and why we do it
The Open Knowledge Center (OKC) is an incubator for communities, projects, initiatives, and programs that build on NC State’s strengths and leadership in public, open, and experimental approaches to research, scholarship, and education. The Center is staffed by librarians, graduate assistants, and visiting scholars with deep expertise on information policy, open research and scholarship, and knowledge production workflows, tools, and platforms.
Open knowledge is important as part of educational equity (in the academy), but also it is an important part of knowledge equity, transparency, and trustworthiness, especially in a digital first discovery context. Therefore, the purpose of the OKC is to advance community-centered and academically produced knowledge rooted in equitable access and collaborative process. We aim to achieve sustainable, just, and iterative localized-to-global change in how we share, produce, and disseminate knowledge. With these practices of support and co-engagement, we hope to demonstrate the unique role that libraries can play in open knowledge, and how by engaging in reflectivity we as librarians can reframe our capacities and responsibilities in the 21st century.
