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PhysMath Central is hosting two videos, one of them new, on CERN’s project to convert particle physics journals to OA:
OA resources on infectious diseases Matthew E. Falagas, Efthymia A. Karveli, and George Panos, Infectious Disease Cases for Educational Purposes: Open-Access Resources on the Internet, Clinical Infectious Diseases, August 15, 2007. Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
Jeffrey Thomas, Africa: 'Internet in a Box' Brings Information to Developing World, AllAfrica.com, July 17, 2007. Excerpt:
NIH Policy Spurring Discussion of How Best to Ensure Public Access, Library Journal Academic Newswire, July 19, 2007. Excerpt:
Comments.
More evidence that OA helps (and TA hurts) journal impact factors Shu-Kun Lin, Non-Open Access and Its Adverse Impact on Molecules, Molecules, July 16, 2007. An editorial. (Thanks to Stevan Harnad.) Excerpt:
Now that there are more than a million OA books online... David Adams, Once upon a time ... e-book revolution, The Age, July 19, 2007. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) Excerpt:
Repository deposits via APP and SWORD APP and Repositories, Inkdroid, July 16, 2007. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) Excerpt:
More on the House support for an OA mandate for the NIH House Backs Taxpayer-Funded Research Access, a press release from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, July 20, 2007. Excerpt:
Full Text: Keen vs. Weinberger, Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2007. An excellent back-and-forth between Andrew Keen and David Weinberger on the value of the web and Web 2.0. Is the web a low-culture nightmare of amateurs and narcissism or a messy, open opportunity for every kind of culture? PS: You know where I come down:
Reviewing the literature on wikis in education Paul Kawachi, Critique of the Literature on Wikis, Open Education Network Blog, July 20, 2007.
PS: Kawachi cites and discusses nine articles, including two of his own. Save the UK Select Committee on Science and Technology 38 notable UK scientists and science funders have published a letter to the editor in today's issue of The Guardian calling for the survival of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology. Among other things, the Select Committee provides oversight of the UK Office of Science & Innovation, which has already disappeared in Gordon Brown's reorganization of the government. As a consequence, Parliament may lay down the Select Committee as well. Excerpt:
The lead signatory is Prof Sir Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, and among the others are Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, and four Nobel laureates. Comments.
Update. Also see brief notice from CORDIS News and the Daniel Clery story in Science Magazine. Engineering publisher launches a hybrid journal program Professional Engineering Publishing (PEP) has launched a hybrid OA program for all 19 of its journals. From yesterday's announcement:
Also see PEP's Overview of Engineering Open Choice. I'd post an excerpt here but the PDF is locked and doesn't permit cutting/pasting. (Why?) A few details:
Comments.
More on the HHMI-Elsevier deal Stevan Harnad, Think Twice Instead of Double-Paying for Open Access, Open Access Archivangelism, July 19, 2007. Excerpt:
Comment. My similar but not identical take from the April issue of SOAN:
Abby Seiff, Will John Wilbanks Launch the Next Scientific Revolution? Popular Science, July 2007. Excerpt:
House approves OA mandate for NIH, but Bush may veto Late yesterday the House of Representatives approved the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill creating an OA mandate at the NIH. The Associated Press gives both the good news and the bad. The good:
The bad:
Comments.
Update. For more perspective on the prospect of a Bush veto, see this story in today’s National Journal. Both parties seem to relish the prospect of a battle:
Update. Charles Bailey has listed the names of all House members who voted against the bill.
Recent posts by Peter Murray-Rust Peter Murray-Rust has been writing some very good blog posts very fast. Because they’re directly about OA, and good, I want blog excerpts here. But because they’re numerous, and I’m already overloaded, I can’t keep up with them. So with apologies to all for my lateness and brevity, here are some quick pointers to some of his recent posts on (1) open data and (2) access barriers left in place at “free”, “open”, and “hybrid” journals.
In short, if you follow my blog, you should also follow his. There are many other blogs in this category, but —so far— I’ve been able to keep up with them. Tim Brody, Les Carr, Alma Swan, and Stevan Harnad, Time to Convert to Metrics, Research Fortnight, July 18, 2007 (accessible only to subscribers, at least so far). Excerpt:
Open-source journal publishing software Roman Ch�la, What open source webpublishing software has the scientific community for e-journals? In Proceedings CASLIN 2007, Stupava (Slovak Republic), 2007. Self-archived July 19, 2007.
The changing publication environment for US research Robert K. Bell, The Changing Research and Publication Environment in American Research Universities, a working paper from the US National Science Foundation, July 2007. From the body of the paper:
Morris W. Foster and Richard R. Sharp, Share and share alike: deciding how to distribute the scientific and social benefits of genomic data, Nature Reviews Genetics, August 2007. (Thanks to Garrett Eastman.) Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
Open-source tool for automated metadata extraction The National Library of New Zealand has upgraded and opened the source code for its Metadata Extraction Tool. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) From yesterday’s announcement:
Comments.
Update. Thanks to Dorothea Salo for this splash of cold water:
Thanks, Dorothea. Got it now. But when an open-source tool for extracting descriptive/bibliographic metadata comes along, we’ll know what to do with it-- More on the HHMI-Elsevier deal Alex Palazzo, JCB to HHMI: Why did you sell out to Elsevier? The Daily Transcript, July 18, 2007. Excerpt:
Comment. Exactly. See my similar evaluation in the April issue of SOAN. BioMed Central has launched Open Access and the Developing World, a new information portal that
From yesterday’s announcement on the BMC blog:
From the BMC follow-up post to the launch announcement:
From BMC’s press release:
OA mandate for NIH clears another hurdle Over the weekend I and many others spread the word that the House of Representatives would vote Tuesday, July 17, on the appropriations bill establishing an OA mandate at the NIH. Here's an update.
The bill did move to the House floor on Tuesday (yesterday). But the bill must be read aloud before the vote and it's a large bill, containing appropriations for all the agencies and programs in three federal departments (Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education). The reading started yesterday and continues today. It's proceeding as I write. It may end later today or it may not end until tomorrow. The last chance to offer an amendment on a given section is the moment when that section comes up in the reading. The section creating the OA mandate (§217) was just read a few minutes ago. The amendment window opened briefly and then closed. No amendments were offered. We've cleared a major hurdle. Publisher organizations have been unusually intense and well-organized in lobbying to amend or strike this language. They may have had some House members on their side but, if so, they retreated and the strong language survived intact. This victory reflects the groundswell of public support for OA at the NIH. House members definitely heard the message. For all of you who contacted your representative and urged others to do so, thank you. We still await the House vote, which should come later today or tomorrow, and then the Senate vote, which is still unscheduled. Then we'll need a Presidential signature. Charles Bailey has upgraded his useful service, Open Access Update, which pulls together OA information from many different sources (including OAN). From his announcement:
Proceedings of the Rome conference on IRs and OA Paola De Castro and Elisabetta Poltronieri (eds.), Institutional archives for research: experiences and projects in Open Access, the entire proceedings of the conference, Institutional archives for research: experiences and projects in Open Access (Rome, November 30 - December 1, 2006). Self-archived July 18, 2007. Abstract:
New OA journal in high energy physics Advances in High Energy Physics is a new peer-reviewed OA journal from Hindawi. From today’s announcement:
Update. I just learned about another new OA journal from Hindawi, Advances in Artificial Intelligence. (Thanks to MEDAL Blogging.) I haven’t yet seen an announcement for this one. For data too, access and quality are independent Tracey Lauriault, Cost Recovery Policies are NOT Synonymous with Data Quality, DataLibre, July 17, 2007. Excerpt:
Update on the EPA library fiasco Public Access To EPA Library Holdings In Jeopardy, a press release from the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, July 17, 2007. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) Excerpt:
PKP Scholarly Publishing presentations Abstracts of the presentations from the First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference (Vancouver, July 11-13, 2007) are now online. Also see this list. The conference blog is now complete as well. It’s one of the best I’ve seen, with a detailed entry on each presentation.
Open Library launches a working demo site The Open Library (from the Open Content Alliance) now has a working demo site. From the site:
Also see this listserv announcement from Alexis Rossi of the Internet Archive:
More on the conversion of GIGA's journals to OA The German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) is converting six of its journals to OA, thanks to funding from Germany’s DFG. The bilingual announcement I’m excerpting below is undated, but the DFG grant was awarded on May 21 and a related German-only press release is dated July 9. Excerpt:
Comment. Kudos to GIGA and DFG. This is notable for several reasons. First, it’s one of the first strong steps toward OA by the influential Leibniz Gemeinschaft. Here’s hoping there’s more to come. Second, it’s six journals at once. The pace of TA-OA journal conversions has definitely picked up over the past year, but seeing six move at once is still unusual. Third, it’s publicly-funded. If it’s not the first journal conversion program in this category, it’s one of the first. The July/August issue of D-Lib Magazine is now online. Here are the OA-related articles:
JISC launches RepositoryNet to connect existing projects JISC has launched RepositoryNet, an umbrella initiative to unify four of its existing repository projects. From today’s announcement:
Making data OA while blocking downstream enclosures Chris Rusbridge, Open Data... Open Season? Digital Curation Blog, July 16, 2007. Excerpt:
HP and MIT Create Non-profit Organization to Support Growing Community of DSpace Users, the HP press release on the launch of the DSpace Foundation, July 17, 2007. Excerpt:
New book on setting up an OAI-compliant repository Using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (Third Millennium Cataloging), a new book from Libraries Unlimited by Timothy W. Cole and Muriel Foulonneau, June 30, 2007. (Thanks to Muriel Foulonneau.) From the publisher’s description:
Andrea Foster, DSpace Archiving Project for Research Will Get $500,000 Shot in the Arm, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 17, 2007 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:
PS: “Foundering”? Update. Also see Dorothea Salo, DSpace is Not Foundering. Publish-or-perish policies entail OA Jan Velterop, Fly or flounder, The Parachute, July 16, 2007. Excerpt:
Access policies at the Leibniz Gemeinschaft Klaus Graf has written a series of blog posts (one, two, three, four), in German, on the access policies of the Leibniz Gemeinschaft. Here’s his English-language summary (by email):
French obstacles to the scholarly use of images Klaus Graf reports (in German) on a Paris conference on the obstacles —from lack of fair use to high museum prices— faced by art historians who wish to use images in their publications. See the conference announcement, which links to relevant articles from the right sidebar, and a report summarizing the discussion (both in French). OpenURL link resolvers increase journal usage Hua Yi and Catherine S. Herlihy, Assessment of the impact of an open-URL link resolver, New Library World, 108, 7/8 (2007) pp. 317–331. Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
Comment. These results show that reducing access barriers improves usage even for priced or toll-access journals. Imagine the effect of removing access barriers. Unfortunately it’s easier to do a controlled before/after test with the former than with the latter. But does anyone doubt that if we measured the usage of a set of TA journals before and after their conversion to OA, we would see usage would go up? Time and resources permitting, journals planning to convert should consider such a controlled study as part of the process. Update. I just learned about a similar study: John D. McDonald, Understanding Online Journal Usage: A Statistical Analysis of Citation and Use, Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, January 1, 2007. Abstract: This study examined the relationship between print journal use, online journal use, and online journal discovery tools with local journal citations. Local use measures were collected from 1997 to 2004 and negative binomial regression models were designed to test the effect that local use, online availability, and access enhancements have on citation behaviors of academic research authors. Models are proposed and tested to determine whether multiple locally recorded usage measures can predict citations and if locally controlled access enhancements influence citation. The regression results indicated that print journal use was a significant predictor of local journal citations prior to the adoption of online journals. Publisher-provided and locally recorded online journal use measures were also significant predictors of local citations. Online availability of a journal was found to significantly increase local citations and for some disciplines, a new access tool like an OpenURL resolver significantly impacts citations and publisher provided journal usage measures. Finding online versions of printed texts Eric Engleman, Startup's aim: Scan a printed page, get a website, Puget Sound Business Journal, July 13, 2007. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)
That’s all that the newspaper shows to non-subscribers. But ResouceShelf adds a bit more:
PS: I like this idea. As far as I can tell, it only works for texts that have been indexed for free online searching, the vast majority of which are OA. Jim Till reviews John Willinsky Jim Till, Review of The Access Principle, Be openly accessible or be obscure, July 15, 2007. Excerpt:
Pennsylvania may catch up with the rest of the US Putting laws online overdue, Altoona Mirror, July 16, 2007. An editorial. Excerpt:
Clement Vincent, The Purloined Bibliography, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 16, 2007. Vincent compiled a bibliography, made it OA, and later found it plagiarized in a published book. (The proof was that the published version repeated Vincent’s typos and annotations.) When he confronted the publisher with the evidence, it questioned whether a web site or bibliography could be copyrighted. When Vincent wrote to the authors, he received an acknowledgement of his work and an apology for the omission. The publisher eventually reprinted the plagiarized portion of the book with credit to Vincent. Excerpt:
Comments.
Publishing for machine and human readers Representing and coding the knowledge embedded in texts of Health Science Web published articles, in Leslie Chan and Bob Martens (eds.), Proceedings ElPub - International Conference on Electronic Publishing, Vienna, Austria, 2007, pp. 33-42. Self-archived July 12, 2007.
Heather Morrison, 1,000 journals using Open Journal Systems, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, July 15, 2007. Excerpt:
A spammer has started using my email address as the faked return address in a locust-storm of spam. There are three consequences that might affect you:
Items #2 and #3 are serious inconveniences for both of us. I’d much rather have legit mail go through than to block illegit mail, if I had to choose, and therefore find these consequences more harmful than spam itself. Heather Joseph podcast on NIH policy
Hear an 8 minute podcast by Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC, on the importance of strengthening the NIH public access policy from a request to a requirement. (Thanks to DigitalKoans.)
Action alert for contacting Congress on the NIH policy To make it easier to contact your Congressional delegation, the American Library Association has created an online action alert. Just enter your zip code, fill in your contact info, compose your message, and go. (Thanks, ALA.) Unlike some other action alerts, unfortunately, this one does not supply a pre-written message. But the front page of the alert contains some bullet points in support of an OA mandate at the NIH. If you copy that text before advancing to the next stage, you can paste it into to the message field. You’ll have to reformat it before sending it, since the bullets will disappear in the plain-text message field. Or, you could use some of the language from the open letter to Congress from 26 US Nobel laureates in science. If you don’t want to use the ALA web form, find your Representative and Senators and use their own preferred web forms, email addresses, or telephone and fax numbers. But please do it one way or another and do it soon. The House vote is on Tuesday, July 17, and time is running out. Update. Charles Bailey has turned the ALA/SPARC bullet points into plain text ready to cut/paste into the ALA action-alert text box. This is a great convenience. Use the language as it is or paste it into the text box and modify it before sending it. (Thanks, Charles!) Mike Smith, Open Access Journals and Archaeology, Publishing Archaeology, July 14, 2007. Excerpt:
Special issue on Creating Commons The March 2007 issue of SCRIPT-ed is devoted to Creating Commons. (I missed this at the time; thanks to Cedarburgdentalgroup for the alert.) All the articles are OA-related, but see especially:
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