Simon’s research focuses on equality of access to information. There are two main strands to his work. The first focuses on the area of scholarly communication, and open access (OA) – the principle that research outputs should be freely available to anyone who wants to read them. His work in on this has included the publication of a book on the theory and practice of OA. The second strand of research relates to the role and function of public libraries, including responses to the COVID-19 crisis, the value of public library buildings, and the ways in which community needs can be understood and incorporated into public library design processes. Simon is a Co-Investigator on the ARC funded project Designing for Communities with Communities: Co-designing Public Libraries.

Publications