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"Hassles" from Elsevier on sponsored OA
Rosie Redfield has posted (1, 2, 3) about her experiences providing OA to her article accepted for publication in an Elsevier journal.
Update. See also Jonathan Eisen's comments.
Jonathan Gray, What can you do with Open Shakespeare?, Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog, September 26, 2008.
Jan Kuras, Chemistry Central host OA session at EuCheMS Congress, Chemistry Central Blog, September 26, 2008.
Podcast on open publication models
On September 26, the MIT Libraries posted a podcast with Gari Clifford on author rights and OA.
More on OA to U.S. presidential debate videos
Lawrence Lessig, Free Debates: Round Two, Lessig Blog, September 25, 2008.
See also our post on the earlier call for OA to the primary debates. DSpace launches global outreach committee
The DSpace Foundation launched its Global Outreach Committee on September 23, 2008. Committee members are volunteers who manage repositories worldwide. The committee's goal is to facilitate regional support, trainings, user group meetings, and users resources. The committee still has open seats for members from Europe and/or Asia.
French journal drops its embargo on the OA edition Andr� Gunthert, Etudes photographiques revient en ligne avec ses images, �tudes photographiques, September 17, 2008. Read it in French or Google's English. (Thanks to Peter Hirtle.) An editorial announcing the relaunch of the journal's online edition, which will now appear simultaneously with the print edition. Gunthert concludes that embargoes (or moving walls) harm readers and that online and print editions serve different users in different ways. The Open Access Directory (OAD) just opened a list of Videos about OA for community editing and enlargement. Like the list of Educational materials about OA launched last week, this one is timed to support Open Access Day (October 14, 2008) and capture the many new resources now under development for it. The first version of the list is short, just enough to justify a launch. If you know of videos about OA (not just videos which happen to be OA), please take a moment to add them. OAD contributors must register, but registration is free and easy. Integrating seven OA databases of carbohydrate sequences R. Ranzinger and three co-authors, GlycomeDB - integration of open-access carbohydrate structure databases, BMC Bioinformatics, September 19, 2008. From the abstract:
Comment. GlycomeDB illustrates a scenario that should become more and more common: first make resources OA, and then make related resources consistent and interoperable. OA resources are not only useful because users (human and machine) can access their contents, but because third parties can build on them to offer users (human and machine) the benefits of their combined strengths and synergies. We've blogged many individual presentations from ElPub 2008, Open Scholarship: Authority, Community and Sustainability in the Age of Web 2.0 (Toronto, June 25-27, 2008), but I don't think we've blogged that fact that all the presentations are now online. Many are OA-related. Mathias Klang, Open access barriers: An action research, in Chrisanthi Avgerou, Matthew L. Smith, and Peter Van den Besselaar (eds.), Social Dimensions Of Information And Communication Technology Policy: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Human Choice and Computers (HCC8), Pretoria, South Africa, September 25-26, 2008, Springer, 2008. Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
Darren Curtis, Elena Peterson and Christopher Oehmen, A Secure Web Application Providing Public Access To High-Performance Data Intensive Scientific Resources - Scalablast Web Application, a presentation at WEBIST 2008 (Madeira, Portugal, May 4-7, 2008). Scroll about 1/8 down the file. I've only been able to find this abstract:
Another profile of Carl Malamud
Declan McCullagh, Tech activist takes on governments over 'copyrighted' laws, CNET News, September 25, 2008.
See also our many past posts on Malamud and Public.Resource.Org. Update. See also yet another profile from the San Francisco Chronicle. Open Access Day: 65 participating campuses (and counting)
The Open Access Day blog notes that the number of participating institutions is now up to 65. The participants are located in Australia, Canada, Chile, India, Ireland, Italy, Moldova, Mozambique, Peru, Romania, and the United States. Open Access Day is October 14 -- if your institution hasn't yet signed up to participate, there's still time to do so.
See also our past posts on Open Access Day. First OA edition of Health and Human Rights
Corydon Ireland, Health, rights journal open to all, The Harvard University Gazette, September 25, 2008.
See also our post from March noting that HHR was converting to OA.
Urology Annals is a new peer-reviewed OA journal, published by the Saudi Urological Association and Medknow. The journal's inaugural issue will be released in January 2009; the journal will be published quarterly. There are no article processing charges. The journal's contents will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. The journal's site also notes that it "permits authors to self-archive final accepted version of the articles on any OAI-compliant institutional / subject-based repository."
Reminder: survey on repository copyright policies
The deadline to participate in the University of East Anglia's survey of copyright-related practices at institutional repositories is approaching. The survey will be open until September 30, 2008. (Thanks to Mark Jones.)
See also our past post on the survey. More notes on the Brisbane conference
More commentary on Open Access and Research Conference 2008 (Brisbane, September 24-25, 2008):
New release of Open Conference Systems
On September 24, Public Knowledge Project announced the release of version 2.1.1 of its Open Conference Systems software.
Medbrains is a new, free platform for medical blogs. (Thanks to The 28-Hour-Day diet.)
More on how NIH encourages and monitors compliance The NIH has released a Reminder Concerning Grantee Compliance with Public Access Policy and Related NIH Monitoring Activities, September 23, 2008. Excerpt:
Penn State's experiment with OA/TA books Shaun Manning, Penn State Press and Libraries Come Together for Digital Publishing, The Exchange Online (newsletter of the AAUP), September 19, 2008. Excerpt:
Citation links connecting OA journals Alireza Noruzi, Citation-Linking between Open Access Journals, Webology, June 2008. An editorial. Excerpt:
Gary Hall book on OA now available Gary Hall, Digitize This Book! The Politics of New Media, or Why We Need Open Access Now, a new book on OA just released by the University of Minnesota Press. Hall is a professor of media and performing arts at Coventry University, a founding co-editor of the peer-reviewed OA journal, Culture Machine, director of the OA Cultural Studies e-Archive, CSeARCH, and co-founder of the Open Humanities Press. Here's the blurb from the book's home page:
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ACS will accommodate more funder OA mandates, for a fee Fred Campbell, ACS open access agreement, Chemistry World, September 2008. Excerpt:
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Update and correction (9/27/08). The ACS currently offers NIH-funded authors three options, one of which requires no fee and no ACS membership. The problem it is trying to fix with its forthcoming revision is to make the fee-based AuthorChoice option compatible with the requirements of the Wellcome Trust and MRC. Those funders will pay fees on behalf of authors, but only for publishers who go beyond gratis to libre OA. If the ACS does start to offer libre OA for its AuthorChoice fees, that would be a step forward, especially if it continues to offer a no-fee option for NIH-funded authors. Labels: Hot When does open geodata help develop geodata infrastructure? B. van Loenen, Developing geographic information infrastructures: the role of access policies, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, September 9, 2008. (Thanks to GeoData Policy.) Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
Notes from the Brisbane OA conference Alma Swan, Open Oz, OptimalScholarship, September 26, 2008. Excerpt:
More on the OA commitment of the German science alliance If you remember, in June 2008 a group of important German research institutions and funding agencies launched the Allianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen (Alliance of German Science Organizations), which committed itself to support green and gold OA, among other goals. The Alliance's founding document from June 11, 2008, is now available in English. (Thanks to Neil Beagrie.) Excerpt:
PS: The founding members of the Alliance are the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), the Fraunhofer Society, the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren (Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers), the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK, German Rectors Conference), the Leibniz Society, the Max Planck Society, and the Wissenschaftsrat (WR, German Council of Science and Humanities). Apparently the Alliance still doesn't have a web site. But if I'm wrong, I'd love to be corrected. Labels: Hot
Dismissing the "smallness" of OA
Barbara Kirsop, OA 'a small idea'?, Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, September 22, 2008.
Top 5 collections of open university courses
Dan Colman, The Top Five Collections of Free University Courses, Open Culture, September 24, 2008. Here are the collections -- see the article for information and links:
Notes on Repository Fringe conference
Edinburgh Repository Fringe 2008, EDINA newsline, September 2008. Notes on the Edinburgh Repository Fringe (Edinburgh, July 31-August 1, 2008).
See also our past posts on the Repository Fringe.
Alex Diaz, Book Search everywhere with new partnerships and tools, Inside Google Book Search, September 22, 2008.
... We're launching a set of free tools that allow retailers, publishers, and anyone with a web site to embed books from the Google Book Search index. We are also providing new ways for these sites to display full-text search results from Book Search, and even integrate with social features such as ratings, reviews, and readers' book collections. ... NIH funds 6 genome studies, data to be OA
NIH's Genes, Environment and Health Initiative adds 6 studies, press release, September 24, 2008.
See also our past posts on dbGaP. OA search engine seeks professional reviewers
hakia Issues Open Call to Librarians and Information Professionals: Help Us Guide Web Searchers to Credible Web Sites, press release, September 22, 2008.
Semantic search engine hakia today announced an open call to librarians and information professionals to participate in a new program to unlock credible and free Web resources to Web searchers. Currently, hakia is generating credibility-stamped results for health and medical searches to guide users towards credible Web content. These results come from credible Web sites vetted by the Medical Library Association. Now, hakia is aiming to further its coverage to all topics, with the participation of librarians and information professionals. ... Blogs as conversation between researchers and the public
Shelley A. Batts, et al., Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy, PLoS Biology, September 23, 2008.
Scientific discovery occurs in the lab one experiment at a time, but science itself moves forward based on a series of ongoing conversations, from a Nobel Prize winner's acceptance speech to collegial chats at a pub. When these conversations flow into the mainstream, they nurture the development of an informed public who understand the value of funding basic research and making evidence-based voting decisions. It is in the interests of scientists and academic institutions alike to bring these conversations into the public sphere. ... The state of open data in Finland Arja Kuula and Sami Borg, Open Access to and Reuse of Research Data � The State of the Art in Finland, Finnish Social Science Data Archive, July 2008. (Thanks to Stuart Macdonald.) Excerpt:
From the Brisbane OA conference Anna Salleh, Australia to gain from open access to research, ABC News, September 25, 2008. Excerpt:
On the OA mandates at Harvard and the NIH Norm Medeiros, Harvard, NIH, and the balance of power in the open access debate, OCLC Systems & Services, vol. 24, no. 3, 2008. A self-archived version of a TA article.
Blog notes on Wilbanks presentation
Andrew Newman, Who Holds the Power?, More News, September 24, 2008. Blog notes on a presentation by John Wilbanks at an event apparently entitled Publishing in Today's Environment (location unknown, apparently September 22, 2008).
... There's a power struggle occurring between researchers and publishers to make data, papers and the like freely available. The power used to be on the side of publishers but as the producers band together (by country, university, faculty and so on) the power is going back to them. ...
Presentations from BMC forum at Festival of Science
BioMed Central has posted the presentations from its forum, "How science addresses developing world issues," at the Festival of Science (Liverpool, September 6-11, 2008). Several discuss OA:
Profile of OA advocate Joseph DeRisi
Art Chimes, Joseph DeRisi Battles Malaria with Innovation and Openness, Voice of America, September 22, 2008.
See also our past posts about DeRisi.
Elisa Mason, Open Access, Researching Refugees, September 23, 2008.
... How open are forced migration journals ...? I listed 17 periodicals in my forced migration guide that focus specifically on issues relating to forced migration and/or humanitarianism (excluding two that report on statistics). Of these, four make all of their issues available online free-of-charge (Forced Migration Review, Humanitarian Exchange, International Review of the Red Cross, and Journal of Humanitarian Assistance). Three of these titles are not peer-reviewed and are practice- rather than academic-oriented. (The exception is the International Review of the Red Cross, which is peer-reviewed. While its publication was recently outsourced to Cambridge University Press, current issues are still being posted online.) Andrew Albanese, University of South Carolina Names New Library for Senator Fritz Hollings, Library Journal, September 23, 2008. Comment. Fritz Hollings? In 2002, Hollings introduced a bill in Congress (the Security Systems and Standards Certification Act, or SSSCA, later renamed the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, or CBDTPA) which would require all computers to contain government-approved, hardware-level DRM to prevent anyone from reading, copying, or downloading copyrighted content without the machine-readable permission of the copyright holder. It would criminalize any attempt to bypass or remove the DRM, build a new computer without it, or log into the internet with an unsecured (i.e. uncrippled) computer. Violators would face 5-20 years in prison and fines from $50,000 to $1,000,000. Fred von Lohmann said the CBDTPA would be like "putting the dinosaurs in charge of evolution." I called the bill "a war against universal Turing machines...to make the world safe for entertainment." Most relevant to the University of South Carolina, Siva Vaidhyanathan said the bill "would fundamentally change the way libraries use electronic databases and CD-ROMs. You could no longer have widespread access to materials....You would have to start paying libraries for access because they would not be able to afford it on their own." Call for partners to digitize Caribbean newspapers
Laurie Taylor, Invitation to Participate in Caribbean Newspaper Digitization Project, Digital Library Center Blog, September 23, 2008. (The call is also posted in Spanish at the same address.)
Zerhouni will step down from the NIH next month Elias A. Zerhouni to End Tenure as Director of the National Institutes of Health, a press release from the NIH, September 24, 2008. Excerpt:
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Update (9/25/08). Here's some background, especially to the "why now?" question. From Jeffrey Young at The Hill:
From Jocelyn Kaiser at Science Magazine:
Update (9/27/08). Also see the statement from Genetic Alliance. Excerpt:
Update (10/9/08). Also see Andrew Albanese's story in Library Journal. Labels: Hot Five more research institutions sign the Berlin Declaration Five institutions have signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge since June 2008. (Thanks to Anja Lengenfelder.)
What's wrong with this picture? Gavin Baker, Ludicrously closed access; or how to alienate readers and look foolish, A Journal of Insignificant Inquiry, September 23, 2008. Gavin found a TA article about OA, with no abstract (Ross Singer, "Opening Up Access to Open Access"), published in a new journal (Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship) from Haworth, a division of Taylor & Francis. The journal has an online digital edition and Haworth offered a complimentary copy of the inaugural issue on request. The denouement?
New RSP lists of repository software and supportive services The UK Repositories Support Project launched two new services yesterday: From the announcement:
PS: Also see the OAD list of Free and open-source repository software. More on Kim Carr's call for OA in Australia Bernard Lane, Carr favours open access, The Australian, September 24, 2008. Excerpt:
Interoperable preservation repositories The Florida Digital Archive has received a major grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for a project on Interoperable Preservation Repositories. (Thanks to Charles Bailey, whom I'm happy to see back online after a damaging encounter with Hurricane Ike.)
OAD list of educational materials about OA The latest list from the Open Access Directory (OAD) is devoted to Educational materials about OA. Dorothea Salo has seeded the list, and it's now open for community editing. It's launching this week in order to support Open Access Day (October 14, 2008), and to capture the many teaching and learning materials currently under development for it. The list is looking especially for materials that other users can mine for ideas, and use with attribution, when preparing their own talks, slide shows, brochures, posters, videos, podcasts, and workshops. (OAD merely links to these materials; it doesn't host its own copies.) OAD is a wiki and appreciates your help in keeping its lists comprehensive, accurate, and up to date. Labels: Hot List of English-language OA LIS journals
S. N. Chari has posted a list of OA English-language journals in library and information science, dated September 23, 2008.
Publishing Open Content is a new documentary on using Creative Commons in business applications. It includes an interview with Timo Hannay, publishing director at nature.com. (Thanks to Creative Commons.)
Call for end to copyright in gov. publications in Canada
Canadian Library Association, Unlocking the Public Interest: The views of the Canadian Library Association on Bill C-61, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, report, September 2008. (Thanks to Michael Geist.) See especially point 11:
Crown Copyright The University of Toronto is scheduled to cut its funding for Bioline International at the end of this month. For details, see two comments recently posted to Richard Poynder's interview with Leslie Chan, a professor at Toronto and Associate Director of Bioline. From the comment by Marla Miller:
Comment. Bioline is an OA pioneer and success story, directly helping researchers in developing countries and reflecting well on the U of Toronto. See our 33 past posts on it. Just yesterday Michael Geist highlighted it in his column in the Toronto Star:
Labels: Hot Rockefeller UP disavows AAUP support for Conyers bill Mike Rossner, Executive Director of the Rockefeller University Press, has released his letter to the American Association of University Presses (AAUP), protesting its support for the Conyers bill. He sent the letter today. Excerpt:
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Update (9/24/08). Also see Peter Givler's response to Mike Rossner's letter. Givler is the Executive Director of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP). Excerpt:
I have three quick comments on Givler's response to Rossner:
Labels: Hot New WIPO director wants to "reduce the global knowledge gap"
William New, Idris Bids WIPO Farewell; Newly Appointed DG Gurry Outlines Initiatives, Intellectual Property Watch, September 22, 2008.
Australian Francis Gurry became the next [director general] of the World Intellectual Property Organization Monday, and promptly signalled a programme of increased multilateralism and bolstered global and local relevance for the United Nations body. ...Update. See also my comments at gavinbaker.com. Excerpt:
Cy Dillon, More Access, More Impact: Updates on the Open Access Movement from Peter Suber and Jonathan Band, Virginia Libraries, April/May/June 2008. From my part of the interview:
From Jonathan Band's part of the interview:
Rick Weiss, Kicking the Doorstop on Open Access, Science Progress, September 22, 2008.
... I also happen to agree with [Allan] Adler, of the [Association of American Publishers], that Congress did not handle this in the most upright fashion. The mandate was handled through the appropriations process rather than through conventional legislation, and hearings could have helped hammer out a more perfect and perhaps more flexible system. But for better or worse, a lot of federal policymaking is accomplished through the appropriations process. Potentially lifesaving research on human embryonic stem cells and other studies on early human development have been stalled for more than a decade in large part because of appropriations language. If Adler wants to reform that Congressional shortcoming, I am all for it. But I would start by going after approps language that is really harming society in a big way, not language that is leaning on scientific publishers to share their material more equitably.
Rick Kopak, Open Access and the Open Journal Systems: Making Sense All Over, School Libraries Worldwide, July 2008. (Thanks to Bryn Samuels.) Abstract:
At a time when students are increasingly turning to the Web as their primary source of information, it is well worth continuing to consider ways and means of taking advantage of this trend, and to perhaps relocate attention to traditional information sources presented in new ways. This paper makes the case that Open Access to electronic scholarly journals creates an opportunity for schools and school libraries to benefit from use of these journals. Furthermore, the article describes work being done by the Public Knowledge Project in creating a technical infrastructure for the creation and use of Web based electronic journals through the development of the Open Journal Systems, and the ongoing development of an interactive reading environment for these journals.
The supplement to the current issue of Nature Reviews Genetics, on genomic medicine in developing countries, is available gratis with free registration. The supplement will apparently be OA indefinitely, not temporarily. (Thanks to Jim Till.)
Update. Chalk this up as yet another NPG experiment with OA. Estimate: # of gold OA articles doubles from 2006 to 2008
Heather Morrison has blogged an estimate speculating that the number of articles published in gold OA journals in 2008 will be double the number published in 2006.
Earlier this month, we blogged a call by Brian Kenney for OA to journals published by the American Library Association. In the comments on Kenney's article, Leonard Kniffel, editor in chief of the ALA journal American Libraries, reports that that journal will convert to OA this fall. (Thanks to Bryn Samuels.)
Regional OA publishers advance science in the global South Wieland Gevers, Regional journals can boost science capacity, SciDev.Net, September 19, 2008. Gevers is the chair of the Academy of Science of South Africa's Committee on Scholarly Publishing and, until recently, the Academy's CEO. Excerpt:
More on OA for communicating with lay readers It�s not just about access, it�s about accessibility, Morning Coffee Physics, September 22, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. I agree with Willinsky on this. The problem with Chad's view (as quoted) is the way it forgets the benefits of OA for professional researchers, regardless of the benefits for lay readers. For my take, see this comment from May 2006:
Anne-Marie Badolato has interviewed Jean Kempf, in French and English, for the INIST-CNRS News site, September 17, 2008. From the English edition:
Update. Anne-Marie Badolato conducted the interview with Th�r�se Hameau, and the French original was translated into English by Richard Dickinson. Cornell library supports the NIH policy The Cornell University Library released its letter to its Congressional representative, supporting the NIH policy and opposing the Conyers bill. (Thanks to the ATA.) The letter is undated but was apparently sent before the September 11 hearing on the anti-OA bill. Excerpt:
AIDS coalition supports the NIH policy The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition has released its September 19 letter to its Congressional delegation, supporting the NIH policy and opposing the Conyers bill. (Thanks to the ATA.) Excerpt:
Guidance on paying publication fees at OA journals An announcement from the Research Information Network (undated but apparently in the last day or two):
Also see the RIN December 2006 Briefing note on the payment of publication fees (and my blog post on it), describing two methods by which UK universities could be reimbursed by the RCUK when they pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals.
The winner of the ORE Challenge from RepoCamp 2008 (Washington, July 25, 2008) was announced on September 19, 2008. A prize of $2,000, sponsored by Microsoft Research, was awarded to Ross McFarlane for OREsome, for the the best prototype that uses and promotes OAI-ORE, the Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange specification. (Thanks to the HatCheck Newsletter.)
"Top tips" on rights and repositories
The Repositories Support Project posted a series of documents from its Rights & Repositories workshop (London, September 5, 2008) on September 22. The documents provide "top tips" on the following topics:
Where's the conversation on OA for school libraries?
Bryn Samuels, Open Access and K-12 School Libraries, Scholarly Communication Issues, September 19, 2008.
A quick search for articles on open access and scholarly communication in the K-12 [primary and secondary] school library world reveals very few articles and even fewer full-text links. Either the conversation is not happening or I just can't get to it. ... New Canadian petition for OA to PSI
I Believe In Open is a new petition to the Canadian government. (Thanks to Heather Morrison.) The fourth point of the petition:
Support reforms allowing free access to scientific and survey data gathered by government institutions.
New OA journal of tropical medicine
Annals of Tropical Medicine and Public Health is a new peer-reviewed OA journal published by the Africa Health Research Organization and Medknow. There are no article processing charges. The inaugural issue is now available.
Americans: Don't forget to contact Congress American citizens who support the NIH policy and oppose the Conyers bill: Please don't forget to notify your Representative and Senators by end of business on Wednesday, September 24, the day after tomorrow. Congress adjourns on Friday and members have to hear from you before they leave town. Even if the Conyers bill doesn't move, the language may be attached to another bill that is moving. For details and a draft letter you can adapt, see the ATA's call to action I blogged last Thursday. Labels: Hot Robin Peek, Fair Copyright in Research Works Act Challenges Federal Funding, Information Today, September 22, 2008.
Comment. Both the Copyright Alliance and Martin Frank argue as if publishers were the copyright holders and the NIH policy prevented them from exercising their rights. But this is uninformed or deceptive. The NIH policy requires grantees to retain a non-exclusive right for the NIH to disseminate their peer-reviewed manuscripts. Grantees may transfer all their other rights to publishers (and typically do). Hence, publishers receive less than the full bundle of rights they formerly received. They don't like that, and it may be a problem for them, but it's not the problem they describe to the press and Congress. They speak as if they simply are the copyright holders, without qualification, yet without the usual freedoms or privileges of copyright holders. But they are not the copyright holders without qualification. They lack the right authors retain: the key right which authorizes OA. Hence, publishers never even acquire the key right which would allow them to deny permission for OA or claim infringement. With respect to all the other rights, which publishers do acquire, the NIH policy does nothing to diminish publishers' freedom to hold and exercise those rights. Announcing a wiki-based encyclopedia of history Docupedia will be a wiki-based encyclopedia of history designed to complement Wikipedia with expert historical scholarship. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, it will be coordinated by the Zentrums f�r Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam, and Humboldt-Universit�t Berlin's Institut f�r Geschichtswissenschaften and Computer- und Medienservice. The project hasn't launched yet and apparently has no home page. But today it launched a blog, and the first entry announces the project. Read the announcement in German or Google's English. See the press release from the OneWebDay organizers:
PS: Don't confuse this with Open Access Day, which is three weeks away on October 14, 2008. Does anyone know of any OA-related events as part of OneWebDay? A search of the OWD wiki turned up nothing. Call to strengthen Canadian commitment to OA Michael Geist, Canada missing out on open access momentum, Toronto Star, September 22, 2008. Excerpt:
NYT science reporter calls for OA
Amy Harmon is a science reporter for the New York Times. In answering a recent set of questions from readers, she mentions OA. (Thanks to Jonathan Eisen.) Excerpt:
Q. I teach literacy courses, including a course in science literacy, at Adirondack Community College (SUNY). A question: What do you see as the greatest limit on or obstacle to the development of science literacy among those who are not scientists themselves ...? Roundup of recent items on open science
Shirley Wu, Corpus callosum: 1st edition of open science round-up, I was lost but now I live here, September 19, 2008.
... For the most part, this round-up is concerned with writings, papers, and websites from the last couple weeks that have to do with open communication, open access, open data, open research, and the tools and policies that affect these endeavors. The hope is that by collecting these materials regularly we can make connections and communicate more easily on the subject. ... Access to old journal articles via Google Book Search
Brian Switek, I love Google Books, Laelaps, September 18, 2008.
It can really be a chore to track down old papers. While many journals have digitized their collections and placed them online, a subscription is often required to access old papers (even from the 19th century!) ... Wellcome Egyptian collection in the World Digital Library
Story of early eastern medicine to be revealed to the world, press release, September 15, 2008. (Thanks to 24 Hour Museum.)
Stress-testing IRs in low-resource environments
Gayatri Doctor, Determining the number of simultaneous users of an institutional knowledge repository at a management institute in India, VINE 38(3), 2008. Only this abstract is OA, at least so far:
Purpose � Digital repositories are still in nascent stages of development in academic institutions especially in developing countries like India. To identify the intellectual capital, facilitate knowledge sharing and management among the faculty and research staff at management institutions, the creation of digital institutional repositories is becoming a necessity. Management institutes in a developing country like India have constraints on infrastructure, manpower and funding. Thus identifying the resource requirements to establish an institutional knowledge repository keeping in view these constraints is necessary. The paper aims to describe a simulation on an institutional knowledge repository (IKR) test bed at a Business School using a performance and load testing tool to determine the number of simultaneous users that the IKR on a minimal server configuration can support on the institute intranet. NIH to work toward policies to "encourage or require investigators to share data"
The U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Center for Research Resources released its strategic plan for 2009-2013 on September 16, 2008. (Thanks to Heather Piwowar.)
Strategic Initiative IV (Informatics Approaches to Support Research) contains the following action item under "Strategy 1: Facilitate information sharing among biomedical researchers": Action Items: NCRR will: Labels: Hot Report on Mozambique IRs and OA workshop
Aissa Mitha Issak, Workshop on Institutional Repositories and Open Access in Mozambique, eIFL, September 17, 2008.
A Workshop on Institutional Repositories and Open Access was held in Maputo, Mozambique, in July from 28 to 30, 2008. 30 participants from higher education and research institutions ... attended the workshop. On the July 30th an open session was organized about Open Access and a broader audience attended this event.
Nate Anderson, Flat World Knowledge: an open-source textbook revolution?, Ars Technica, September 17, 2008.
... Flat World is going through two rounds of private beta testing at the moment with 20 universities, using four of the company's [OA textbooks]. The platform that allows professors to edit the books goes live in mid-December, and Flat World will then double the beta pool to 40 universities in January. The system will come out of beta next summer and be ready for use during the Fall 2009 semester. ...See also our past posts on Flat World Knowledge. Overview of chemical compound databases
Dana L. Roth, Web-Accessible Chemical Compound Information, Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, September 4, 2008. See also this OA self-archived version (free registration required). Abstract:
Web-accessible chemical compound information resources are widely available. In addition to fee-based resources, such as SciFinder Scholar and Beilstein, there is a wide variety of freely accessible resources such as ChemSpider and PubChem. The author provides a general description of various fee-based and free chemical compound resources. The free resources generally offer an acceptable alternative to fee-based resources for quick retrieval. It is assumed that readers will be familiar with The Merck Index, Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, and Knovel Critical Tables. Carole L. Palmer, Lauren C. Teffeau, and Mark P. Newton, Identifying Factors of Success in Institutional Repository Development - Final Report, Mellon Foundation, August 2008. (Thanks to Clifford Lynch.)
The report doesn't identify the three institutions studied. However, it does say this (p. 7): "The three institutions were at different stages of development, but all had made substantive commitments to their IR initiative as evidenced by dedicated IR staff and a relatively high level of ongoing IR-related activities." From the Executive Summary:
Update (9/22/08). Also see Dorothea Salo's detailed praise for the report. User-generated science, The Economist, September 18, 2008. (Thanks to Matt Rhodes.) This article is about blogging science without peer review. But how far do its questions and observations carry over to every other kind of OA science, including green and gold OA to peer-reviewed research? Excerpt:
Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, unsigned but apparently by Aaron Swartz, July 2008.
Also see the Guerilla OA mailing list. Comments
Which printed reference books are still essential? If you have internet access, which printed reference books do you still want at hand? Fred Shapiro asks the question at the Freakonomics blog, and points to an article by Donald Altschiller in the The Wall Street Journal listing five must-have titles. Comment. Despite the rise of OA, my own list is not empty and starts with the Oxford English Dictionary. I say this even though I have prepaid access through Earlham to the electronic edition with its wizardly and wonderful query language. Update (9/22/08). Blake Stacey has picked up the question and started a discussion at LIS News. EC adopts new tone in describing the OA debate The EC's Digital Libraries Initiative page on Scientific and Scholarly Information made some interesting changes this weekend. In the section on Online Accessibility, it deleted these words:
and replaced them with these:
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