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David Biello, Open Access to Science Under Attack, Scientific American, January 26, 2007. Excerpt:
Update. Biello talks about OA and the AAP campaign on a January 31 podcast from Scientific American.
More on OA full-text books increasing the net sales of print editions James Boyle, Text is free, we make our money on volume(s), Financial Times, January 22, 2007. Excerpt:
Successful declarations of independence Declan Butler, Rebels hold their own in journal price war, Nature, January 25, 2007 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:
PS: For more, see my list of 14 journal declarations of independence. I have three more from 2006 to add to the list when I can find the time. Ehrhardt Heinold has blogged some notes on Academic Publishing in Europe conference (Berlin, January 23-24, 2007). Read them in German or in Google's English.
For a minute I had a blog post here excerpting an open letter from the AAP/PSP to Elias Zerhouni. When you open the DOC file, Word stamps it with today's date. Hence, I thought it was released today. But if you look at the URL, you'll see that its real date is July 31, 2006. Sorry for any confusion.
More blogger comments on the AAP Here's a new raft of blogger comments on the AAP's new PR campaign against OA. From Coturnix at A blog around the clock:
From Jim Downing at Coding trombonist:
From Graham at Leftnews:
From Andres Guadamuz at Technollama:
From Iris at Pegasus Librarian:
From Michael Kenward at Michael Kenward:
From Glyn Moody at Open...:
From Heather Morrison at Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics:
From Pam Ryan at pamryan.info:
From Dorothea Salo at Caveat Lector:
Plans for an OA portal of world science The US Department of Energy (DOE) and the British Library have agreed to build an OA portal of world science. From yesterday's announcement:
Rick Weiss, Publishing Group Hires 'Pit Bull of PR', Washington Post, January 26, 2007. Excerpt:
Andrew Leonard, Science publishers get stupid, Salon, January 25, 2007. Excerpt:
Update (1/29/07). See Leonard's follow-up for January 29: "Last Thursday's post on science publishers' hiring a public relations specialist to fight back against the open access movement hit a nerve: The discussion of the topic in the comments area, which includes scientists, journal editors and librarians, has been the most read letters topic in [Leonard's blog's] history." Susan Brown, Publishers' Group Reportedly Hires P.R. Firm to Counter Push for Free Access to Research Results, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 26, 2007 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:
Update. A slightly updated version of this article appears in the February 9 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education. One new bit (my emphasis added): In a statement that was sent to the listserv, Chemical Information Sources Discussion, Brian D. Crawford, who chairs the association's professional and scholarly publishing division, wrote that proponents of free access to scientific papers ignore "the very real risk of damage to science and the public, should peer-reviewed publishing be compromised by unnecessary government intervention ..." Mr. Crawford did not return several voice-mail messages left by The Chronicle asking him to clarify the connection.
There's now a Slashdot thread on the AAP's new PR campaign against OA. (Thanks to Matt Cockerill.) Wouter Gerritsma has blogged some notes on FIBS: Frontiers in Information provision for the Bio- and environmental Sciences (London, January 25, 2007). Excerpt:
I've often argued that reforming peer review and achieving open access are independent projects. But that doesn't mean that OA can't help solve certain problems with conventional review. I like the way Matt Hodgkinson argues that some of the objections to conventional peer review can be answered by OA journals and OA repositories. (Note that a couple of the objections Matt answers here are about problems at conventional journals unrelated to peer review.) Excerpt:
More on the OA mandates at the ARC and NHMRC ARC and NHMRC encourage access to research findings, a joint press release from the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council, January 23, 2007. (Thanks to Colin Steele.) Excerpt:
PS: Both agencies request OA to the research they fund, and both require grantees who choose not to comply with the request to justify their non-compliance. For many observers, including me, this extra obligation effectively converts the request into a mandate. OAIster has harvested and indexed its 10 millionth record. From today's announcement:
PS: Congratulations to Kat Hagedorn and everyone on the OAIster Project. EC "communication" on an OA mandate coming in three weeks Andrew Rettman, Brussels drafts guide for closed world of science journals, EU Observer, January 25, 2007. Excerpt:
Mark Chillingworth, Nature uncovers PR attack on open access, Information World Review, January 25, 2007. Excerpt:
Australia's OA mandate doesn't threaten research grants Stevan Harnad, Green OA is no threat to grants: Pre-emptive Gold OA, today, might be, Open Access Archivangelism, January 25, 2007.
James Hilton on open source development and IRs Jester has blogged some notes on James Hilton's presentation at Open Repositories 2007 (San Antonio, January 23-26, 2007). Excerpt:
New OA journal on infection in developing countries The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries is a new peer-reviewed OA journal. (Thanks to Keith Nockels.) From the site: The Journal is intended to publish original research papers, research notes and reviews covering different aspects of human, animal and environmental Microbiology and infections in developing countries with particular emphasis on emerging and re-emerging etiological agents, diagnosis, and epidemiology and public health. There's been a lot of comment on yesterday's story in Nature on the AAP's new PR campaign against OA. Here's what some bloggers and listserv contributors are saying. From the Center For Media and Democracy:
From Jonathan Eisen at Tree of Life:
From David Goodman on LibLicense:
From Christopher Leonard at Egg:
From OxDE at LiveJournal:
From Christina Pikas at Christina's LIS Rant:
From TangognaT at TangognaT:
Tokyo IR presentations now online The presentations from Standing on the Shoulders of Digital Giants: International Symposium on Institutional Repositories, e-Science and the Future of Scholarly Communication (Tokyo, December 18, 2006) are now online. Drawing attention to overlooked OA journals Heather L. Whitehead and Lisa G. Dunn, Enriching GoldRush with core subject Open Access journals: motives and methods, in Katina Strauch et al. (eds.), Proceedings 26th Annual Charleston Conference, Charleston, 2006. Self-archived January 26, 2007.
Giving users access to data about their online behavior Paul Miller, Open Sesame, Panlibus, Spring 2007. Scroll to p. 26. Excerpt:
Tony Hey: OA mandates are only a matter of time Tony Hey, Open access - transforming scholarly publishing, Panlibus, Spring 2007. Scroll to p. 20. Tony Hey is the VP for Technical Computing at Microsoft. Excerpt:
Journal bundling as an anti-competitive practice The Information Access Alliance is urging the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to consider anti-trust remedies for journal bundling. From yesterday's press release:
Notes from the Institutional Repositories workshop Three contributors to Knowledge Exchange news have blogged some notes on KE's Institutional Repositories Workshop (Utrecht, January 16-17, 2007). See the notes on Day One and Day Two Jim Giles, PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access, Nature, January 24, 2007. Excerpt:
Comments.
Correction (1/25/07). Nature posted this correction today: In the original version of this story, Susan Spilka was reported as emailing a note that said "Media massaging is not the same as intellectual debate." It should have read "Media messaging", and has been changed accordingly. APE 2007: Zwischen Open Access und Urheberrecht, a press release from the B�rsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels. A short preview of the upcoming Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) conference (Berlin, January 23-24, 2007). Read it in German or in Google's English. OA archiving to diffuse scientific knowledge Dossier TIC � diffusion scientifique Les archives ouvertes, [Newsletter of the] Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme, January-March 2007. (Thanks to the INIST Libre Acc�s blog.) On OA archiving at the FMSH and more widely. Read it in the original French or in Google's English. EPrints potential raised to 'a new dimension', a press release from the EPrints team at the University of Southampton, January 24, 2007. Excerpt:
Expanded coverage for free technology search service - TechXtra, a press release from TechXtra, January 24, 2007. Excerpt:
Gregory M. Lamb, Is this the end of the scholarly journal? Christian Science Monitor, January 24, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: Another accurate and interesting article betrayed by the headline writer.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has launched an archive of OA data on surface ocean temperatures. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) Excerpt:
Bernard Lane, Open access a threat to grants, The Australian, January 23, 2007. Excerpt:
Comment. Don't confuse this with an objection to the current OA policy of the the Australian Research Council (ARC). That policy (see Paragraph 1.4.5.3) mandates OA through author self-archiving and does not offer to pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals. We can talk about whether the ARC could answer the objection if it decided that it wanted to pay those fees. But for now that seems abstract and academic. If an inquiry shows that ARC can't afford to start paying fees, then it shouldn't start. The policy is fine as it stands and already takes the most important step by mandating OA archiving. Defeat for early transition to public domain for orphan works Quinn Norton, Kahle v. Gonzales: 9th Circuit says copyright orphans stay orphans, Wired News, January 22, 2007. Excerpt:
Update. Here's a comment by Brewster Kahle, the plaintiff:
Update. Andrea Foster wrote a short article on the case for the January 24 Chronicle of Higher Education (accessible only to subscribers). One new piece of info: Anthony Falzone, executive director of the center's Fair Use Project, said the archivists will probably ask for a rehearing of the case before a full panel of the appeals court's judges. Update (1/25/07). Finally, see the comments of Lawrence Lessig, who argued the case for Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive. Kahle v. Gonzales was decided Monday. After the oral argument, the result was not a surprise. The reasoning of the opinion, however, is. (I�m going to restrict these comments to part I of the opinion). Public domain promotes efficient exploitation better than copyright Paul J. Heald, Property Rights and the Efficient Exploitation of Copyrighted Works: An Empirical Analysis of Public Domain and Copyrighted Fiction Best Sellers, a preprint self-archived on January 9, 2007. (Thanks to Lawrence Lessig.) Abstract: Economists and policymakers have recently defended the extension of copyright protection to assure the efficient exploitation of existing works. They assert that works in the public domain may be under-exploited due to the lack of property rights or over-exploited due to congestion externalities. This study compares the availability, number of editions, and prices of 166 public domain bestsellers published from 1913-1922 with 168 copyrighted bestsellers from 1923-1932. It also compares the 20 most durable public domain works from 1913-1922 with the 20 most durable protected works from 1923-1932. A significantly higher percentage of the public domain books are still in print, with significantly more editions available per book, and for the sub-set of especially durable works, the public domain works are significantly less expensive. Although the data show that rates of availability for both kinds of books are likely sensitive to reductions in the cost of duplication and distribution, the study concludes that protection of fiction beyond the period necessary to ensure its creation is not justified by concerns about under-exploitation. The possibility of congestion presented by the data is also considered. Looking for OA copies of needed articles Sarah Washford, Free Journal Articles, Info Junkie, January 22, 2007. Excerpt:
Open science today and tomorrow Bill Hooker, The Future of Science is Open, Part 3: An Open Science World, 3 Quarks Daily, January 22, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: Unfortunately I had to cut most of Hooker's well-chosen examples, details, and links in order to make this excerpt. See the whole article. And while you're at it, read it in the context of the first two installments:
OA to international air pollution data The UN Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) now includes a policy on OA to convention-collected data. From the January 17 report of the Executive Body on the convention:
There are a few exceptions beyond the vague deference to copyright: OA may be delayed if one of the parties can justify delay, and data centers may charge for access when requested datasets "are not readily available". (Thanks to Tomme Rosanne Young and Donat Agosti for the tip.) Tim O'Reilly, The Connection Between Short, Modular and Open, O'Reilly Radar, January 22, 2007. Excerpt:
Selective free online access to AnthroSource Anthropologists give back: offer wider access to online anthropology archive, a press release from the American Anthropological Association, January 19, 2007. (Thanks to Dorothea Salo.)
Comments.
Update. Here are some anthropologist bloggers talking about the new development.
Searching tables, graphs, and illustrations Marydee Ojala, Searching Scholarly Tables, Figures, Graphs, and Illustrations with CSA Illustrata, Information Today NewsBreaks, January 22, 2007.
Comment. It's not free to use and apparently it's not even close. I post the news here mainly to show what's possible. On the one hand, I hope there will be a free rival one day, optimized for OA literature. On the other, that's just the flip side of saying that this seems to be a very useful tool. (I hedge only because I haven't used it.) CSA is to be commended for taking on this hard problem. Update. Here's a comment by Matt Cockerill, publisher of BioMed Central. I post it with his permission. It may be worth noting in passing that CSA Illustrata includes BioMed Central content. Old OA journal still in demand Charles W. Bailey, Jr., 2006 PACS Review Use Statistics, DigitalKoans, January 21, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: It's surprisingly difficult to come up with a single good adjective for an OA journal that's no longer publishing new articles but still serving up access to old articles. It's not dead, defunct, departed, terminated, bygone, inoperative, inactive, or quondam. So forgive my awkward headline while I keep hunting for the best word.
The growth of OA anthropology in 2006 2006 - The Year of Open Access Anthropology? Antropologi.info, January 21, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: See my own coverage of OA anthropology in 2006. More on permission barriers in art history Andr� Gunthert, Le droit aux images � l'�re de la publication �lectronique, Actualit�s de la recherche en histoire visuelle, January 17, 2007. On the permission barriers that prevent art journals and art books from including essential illustrations. Read the French original or Google's English. Thanks to Klaus Graf for the alert and for a collection of useful related links. For background, see the August 2006 Chronicle of Higher Education story on the same problem (blogged here August 9, 2006), which is also cited in Gunthert's article. Notes from the SPARC-ARL forum at the ALA meeting The pseudonymous author at Never Stop Learning has blogged some notes about the SPARC-ARL forum, Public Access: Federal Research Access Policies and How They'll Change Your Library (January 20), at the ALA Midwinter Meeting (Seattle, January 19-24, 2007). Excerpt:
Sorting out the variables within the OA impact advantage Stevan Harnad, The Open Access Citation Advantage: Quality Advantage Or Quality Bias? Open Access Archivangelism, January 21, 2007. Excerpt: Summary: Many studies have now reported the positive correlation between Open Access (OA) self-archiving and citation counts ("OA Advantage," OAA). But does this OAA occur because (QB) authors are more likely to self-selectively self-archive articles that are more likely to be cited (self-selection "Quality Bias": QB)? or because (QA) articles that are self-archived are more likely to be cited ("Quality Advantage": QA)? The probable answer is both. Three studies [by (i) Kurtz and co-workers in astrophysics, (ii) Moed in condensed matter physics, and (iii) Davis & Fromerth in mathematics] had reported the OAA to be due to QB [plus Early Advantage, EA, from self-archiving the preprint before publication, in (i) and (ii)] rather than QA. These three fields, however, (1) have less of a postprint access problem than most other fields and (i) and (ii) also happen to be among the minority of fields that (2) make heavy use of prepublication preprints. Chawki Hajjem has now analyzed preliminary evidence based on over 100,000 articles from multiple fields, comparing self-selected self-archiving with mandated self-archiving to estimate the contributions of QB and QA to the OAA. Both factors contribute, and the contribution of QA is greater. |