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The September CheckPoint eLearning has a short interview with Rainer Kuhlen on OA, Wem geh�ren Wissen und Information? Read it in German or Google's English.
More comments on the Conyers bill Here's our third collection of comments on the Conyers bill from around the blogosphere. (Also see our first and second.) From Jonathan Blackhall at Encephalosponge:
From David Bollier at On the Commons:
From Gerard Harbison at Greg Laden's Blog:
From Revere at Effect Measure:
From Kevin Smith at Scholarly Communications @ Duke:
OA to Holocaust video testimonies
David DeBolt, Gift Will Help Put Holocaust Video Testimonies on the Internet, The Wired Campus, September 18, 2008.
Funder repository from UK Food Standards Agency
Foodbase is a new OA repository from the UK Food Standards Agency for research funded by the agency. According to Intute, the repository launched in September 2008.
See also our previous post about OA at the Food Standards Agency. Detailed summary of the hearing on the Conyers bill Richard M. Jones, House Hearing on "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act", FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News, September 19, 2008. (Thanks to Garrett Eastman.) Comment. This is the most detailed summary I've seen yet of the hearing on the Conyers bill. If you want even more detail than this, you'll have to watch the video of the hearing, which is OA, or pay to read a third-party transcript. I'm hoping that the government will release an OA version of the transcript --and if it does, I'll blog it. New issue of eIFL.net Newsletter The September/October issue of the eIFL.net Newsletter is now online. Here's the heart of Section 5 on OA developments, overlapping slightly with items already reported here on OAN:
The Universit� de Li�ge launched ORBi (Open Repository and Bibliography) in June 2008. (Thanks to the Driver Newsletter.) Khazar U launches the first IR in Azerbaijan Khazar University has launched the Khazar University Institutional Repository (KUIR). Thanks to eIFL.net for the alert and this additional info:
Google introduces a spoken-word search engine Google has introduced an experimental search engine for spoken words in YouTube videos. At the moment it only indexes videos of political speeches. Nice features: When you search for a term or phrase, you can choose among the hits by reading short (10-12 word) transcripts of the passages which include your search terms. When you pull up an individual video, you can search further within it. Not so nice: unlike vanilla Google, individual searches don't have individual URLs. For more detail, see Google's FAQ on Audio Indexing. PS: Also see the spoken-word search engine announced at MIT in November 2007. An OA mandate from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Germany's Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft adopted an OA mandate in July 2008. (Thanks to the Informationsplattform Open Access.) Unfortunately, both the German and English versions of the policy are locked PDFs which block cutting/pasting (why?) and I don't have time to rekey the important passages. But here are a few highlights:
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Labels: Hot 50+ institutions planning for OA Day More than 50 institutions are already planning events for October 14, 2008, Open Access Day. (Thanks to the OA Day Blog.) Is your institution among them? Update on plans for the Canadian PMC Kumiko Vezina, PubMed Central Canada (PMC Canada) initiative, OA Librarian, September 17, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: For background, see our previous post (June 2007) on the Canadian PMC project.
Public Resource wants to open GPO databases
Public.Resource.Org's Carl Malamud has posted a letter to the Government Printing Office dated September 17, 2008:
I am writing to you today ... [t]o propose that you work with Public.Resource.Org to open source the remainder of your bulk electronic products ... Stanford Engineering offers open courses
Stanford School of Engineering Debuts Service Offering Complete Courses Online for Free, press release, September 17, 2008. (Thanks to The Earth Times.)
The Stanford School of Engineering today announced the debut of Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE), the pilot of a free online service that provides Stanford�s popular introduction to computer science and other computer science and electrical engineering courses. Each consists of complete video lectures and materials such as handouts, assignments, exams and transcripts. With SEE, Stanford Engineering is releasing the courses under a Creative Commons license, explicitly encouraging educators and learners around the world to incorporate the video courses and materials into their educational endeavors and to form virtual communities around the classes. ... Open data and software for climate studies
Francis Irving, Clearer Climate Code, Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog, September 17, 2008.
Strong criticism of flimsy copyright arguments behind Conyers bill Andrew Albanese, In Blunt Terms, Copyright Lawyers, Researchers, Librarians Blast Anti-NIH Bill, Library Journal, September 17, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. Note the final paragraph. Because the bill's language may attach to another bill before Congress adjourns next week (September 26), it's critical to keep up the pressure on Congress. Interview with BMC's Matthew Cockerill
Donna Wentworth, Voices from the future of science: Matthew Cockerill of BioMed Central, Science Commons blog, September 18, 2008.
[Q:] BMC has been a pioneer in road-testing models for making OA publishing sustainable, including introducing an institutional membership program. Can you tell us about some of the milestones you�ve reached? What�s driving your growth? New book on open ed., related topics
Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar, eds., Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge, released September 2008 by MIT Press. An OA edition is available in PDF or iPaper. Section III especially deals with topics beyond education.
Keep the pressure on Congress to support the NIH policy It's not over yet. The Alliance for Taxpayer Action is calling on US citizens to keep the pressure on Congress to support the NIH policy and defeat the Conyers bill. From today's call to action:
Comment. Although we have heard reports that the bill has been shelved for this year, the language could move forward without the bill. For example, even if the sponsors plan no further action on the bill in this session, they could insert the language into another piece of legislation moving toward a vote. We must keep the pressure on between and now and the scheduled adjournment, on September 26, to discourage any last-minute movement. Labels: Hot OA + POD in the UMichigan library The University Michigan has installed an Espresso POD machine in its library to make instant print editions of its many OA and nearly-OA ebooks. From today's announcement:
Journal cuts its OA embargo period in half The Journal of Nuclear Medicine has shortened its OA embargo from 12 months to six. From today's announcement:
The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association will launch on OA Day The incipient Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association is one step closer to launch. From today's announcement:
PS: For background, see our past posts on the OASPA. New funding and enhancements for UKPMC Leading research institutions to further develop free global online access to findings of UK life sciences, a press release from the British Library, undated but apparently September 16, 2008. (Thanks to Robert Kiley.) Excerpt:
Jane Park, Back to School: Open Textbooks Gaining in Popularity, Creative Commons blog, September 16, 2008.
Institutions vs. networks, and OA
This week's edition of the the BBC World Service program The Forum features guests Manuel Castells, John Barrow, and Madhavi Sunder. For the OA connection, see the comments by the JISC Information Environment Team:
... It was an interesting discussion, touching on Castells� view of the emerging network organisation and society, and Professor Barrow�s observations on scientific practice in that context. Castells sees ICT as affording advantage to organisational arrangements that are horizontal (rather than bureaucratic), featuring loosely coupled units of highly skilled professionals, using project-oriented relationships with other such units to get work done. It is a picture that many academics will find familiar of course. Professor Barrow cited arXiv as an example of researchers working in this way, contrasting it with the more traditional �institution� of accessing the literature via journals. ... Notes from iSummit research workshop
Giorgos Cheliotis, Draft report from Free Culture 2008, Commons-research mailing list, September 17, 2008. Notes on the First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture (Sapporo, July 30-August 1, 2008).
Update. See also the wiki version of the notes. Spanish blog notes on researchers & OA conference
Paola Bongiovani, Conferencia Europea sobre Investigadores y Acceso Abierto, Repositorios Din�micos, Septiembre 15, 2008. Blog notes on Researchers and Open Access: the 2nd European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine and Medicine (Oslo, September 4-6, 2008). Read it in the original Spanish or Google's English. (Thanks to Carolina De Volder.)
Interview on open notebook science
Katherine Sanderson, Data on display, Nature, September 15, 2008. (Thanks to Ricardo Vidal.)
Risking being scooped and having patents refused, some scientists are posting their data online as they produce them. Organic chemist Jean-Claude Bradley of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and biochemist Cameron Neylon of the University of Southampton, UK, describe this 'open notebook' approach. ...Update. See also Cameron Neylon's comments on the article, clarifying his statements.
Heather Piwowar, BHAG for Openness, Research Remix, September 16, 2008.
Harold Varmus advises Barack Obama on science policy Brandom Keim, Obama Campaign Reveals Science Advisors, Wired Science, September 17, 2008. Excerpt:
Comments. Obama hasn't yet directly endorsed OA, but this comes very close and may lead to a direct endorsement. In fact, both candidates have already shown that they lean more toward OA than against.
More on Australia's commitment to OA Zo� Corbyn, Australia ups the ante on global access to research, Times Higher Education Supplement, September 18, 2008. Excerpt:
UK funder policies on open data The UK Research Data Service Feasibility Study, an interim report from UKRDS, Version: v0.1a.030708, July 7, 2008. (Thanks to Clifford Lynch.) Among other things, the report summarizes the data sharing policies of the major UK research funding agencies (Table 2, pp. 10-13). John Willinsky at the Perimeter Institute John Willinsky, Open Access Is Public Access, a public presentation at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Ontario, September 8, 2008). (Thanks to Chad Orzel.) The talk is available in many formats, including text, audio, and video.
Turkish atomic energy agency joins SCOAP3 The Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK) has joined the CERN SCOAP3 project. More comments on the Conyers bill Here are some more comments on the Conyers bill from around the blogosphere. (Also see our first collection of comments, three days ago.) From The Aust Gate:
From Paul Courant at Au Courant:
From Bonnie Klein on SOAF and LibLicense:
From John Timmer at Ars Technica:
Also see the Slashdot thread on the Conyers bill. Letter from nine organizations in support of the NIH policy Nine library, publishing, and public-interest organizations have released their September 5 letter to the House Judiciary Committee, supporting the NIH policy and opposing the Conyers bill. Excerpt:
The letter is signed by the American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, the Greater Western Library Alliance, Public Knowledge, Public Library of Science, SPARC (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), and the Special Libraries Association. PS: Note that the Judiciary Committee has suspended action on the Conyers bill until at least 2009. 33 Nobel laureates write to Congress in support of the NIH policy Thirty-three US Nobel laureates in science have written an open letter to Congress defending the NIH policy against the Conyers bill (September 9, 2008). Excerpt:
Comment. This is the third time that US Nobel laureates in science have written to Congress in support of the NIH policy. Also see the first letter (25 signatures, August 26, 2004) and the second letter (26 signatures, July 8, 2007). Labels: Hot
In Australia, reporting annual research data directly from IRs Bernard Lane, Access remains an open secret, The Australian, September 17, 2008. Excerpt:
New OA journal of dental biomechanics
SAGE-Hindawi launch Journal of Dental Biomechanics, press release, September 16, 2008.
The article processing charge is �700. Authors retain the copyrights of their papers, and articles are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
Noam Cohen, Don't Buy That Textbook, Download It Free, New York Times, September 14, 2008.
... [I]n the words of R. Preston McAfee, an economics professor at Cal Tech, ... both textbook publishers and drug makers benefit from the problem of �moral hazards� � that is, the doctor who prescribes medication and the professor who requires a textbook don�t have to bear the cost and thus usually don�t think twice about it. Smithsonian to digitize full collection
Brett Zongker, Smithsonian to put its 137 million-object collection online, The Associated Press, September 16, 2008. (Thanks to Perry Willett.)
The Smithsonian Institution will work to digitize its collections to make science, history and cultural artifacts accessible online ..., the museum complex's new chief said Monday.Comment. Digitization and OA are not necessarily synonymous. It's not completely clear from the article that the digitized collections will be OA; but if they won't, that's news, too. It seems like this announcement is more intention than plan; let's hope that when the Smithsonian fills in the details, that OA is part of the picture. See also our past posts on the Smithsonian, and particularly on the Smithsonian/Showtime deal. Conyers bill on ice until at least 2009 After Hearing, Sweeping Anti-NIH Bill To Be Shelved �for Now, Library Journal Academic Newswire, September 16, 2008.
Labels: Hot September/October 2008 issue of D-Lib
The September/October 2008 issue of D-Lib Magazine is now online. OA-related articles:
Update. See also Dorothea Salo's comments on the Maness article.
Leslie Johnston, open access to museum collections, Digital Eccentric, September 15, 2008.
New OA journal of medieval art
Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art is a new, peer-reviewed OA journal published by the University at Albany Art Department. Authors retain copyright to their work. The inaugural issue is now available. (Thanks to Matthew Gabriele.)
The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) has released a Statement on Alternative Publishing Models & Open Access. It was approved by the CRKN Board of Directors on September 9, 2008, and will be presented to the Annual General Meeting on September 23, 2008, for discussion and ratification. (Thanks to Leslie Chan.) Excerpt:
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Update. Here's some related information from Heather Morrison, by email. (Thanks, Heather.)
Labels: Hot More on OA in developing countries Open access movements in developing countries, a short (1:40 minute) video in which Buhle Mbambo-Thata of UNISA explains why and how developing countries should support OA. It's not a conference presentation, but was apparently filmed at the Locating the Power of In-between Conference (Pretoria, July 1-2, 2008). From the blurb:
OA compendium of structural genomics from PSI and Nature The Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) has re-launched its OA resource, the Structural Genomics Knowledgebase, this time in collaboration with the Nature Publishing Group (NPG). From today's announcement:
OA resources in languages other than English
Iryna Kuchma, Approaching eIFL Open Access from different languages perspective, EIFL, September 10, 2008.
We are going to facilitate information and knowledge exchange about Open Access in different languages. As to the tools - as the first step we have just transformed eiflrussian - Russian speaking eIFL community mailing list - into Open Access discussion forum in Russian language ... There is also the first edition of the registry of publications and presentations about Open Access in Russian ... Please send us the links to the materials which are missing.
We support Open Access - new flyer, Open Access Day, September 12, 2008.
Palestinian university works with Norweigan universities to launch IR
Iryna Kuchma, Open repository in Birzeit university: Palestine-Norway Partnership, EIFL, September 11, 2008.
Birzeit University library in Palestine, Troms� University library and Telemark University College library in Norway have decided to work together in order to promote the development and establishment of an Open research archive for scientific publications and master and PhD theses from Birzeit University. ...
Iryna Kuchma has posted a list of Blogs about OA from eIFL countries, including South Africa, Poland, Mongolia, and Serbia.
See also the OAD list of Blogs about OA. Presentations from Science Policies and Science Portals meeting The presentations from Science Policies and Science Portals (Montreal, August 8, 2008) are now available. The event was a satellite meeting of the World Library and Information Congress (Qu�bec, August 10-14, 2008). (Thanks to Richard Akerman.) Topics include: Repository in a Box: bundle for quick-starting an IR
Mark Leggott, RIB - Repository in a Box, LoomWare, September 14, 2008.
Update. See also Dorothea Salo's comments on the project. Update. See also the comments by Richard Akerman and Lorcan Dempsey. An application of Open Economics
Rufus Pollock, Some Agricultural History via Open Economics, Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog, September 15, 2008.
Blog notes on bias against openness
David Weinberger, [ae] James Boyle, Joho the Blog, September 6, 2008. Blog notes on a presentation by James Boyle at A New Cultural Economy (Linz, September 5-6, 2008).
Sean Smith has started a petition for OA to taxpayer-funded research in the UK:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure that scientific research which has been funded through taxation, is published open access.Comments.
Elsevier offers to provide no-fee OA for early LHC results Elsevier will provide no-fee OA for initial results from CERN's Large Hadron Collider published in Physics Letters B or Nuclear Physics B. From the announcement (undated but apparently within the last week):
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Update. A reader wondered whether "no-fee OA" here refers to gratis OA or libre OA. I'm happy to clarify in case others had the same question. It refers to neither. It refers to the absence of author-side publication fees. Elsevier normally charges a publication fee when an author selects the OA option at one of its hybrid OA journals. But in this case it's waiving the fees. No-fee OA in this sense can be gratis or libre. When an OA journal charges publication fees, I call it a fee-based OA journal. When it doesn't charge publication fees, I call it a no-fee OA journal. The same terms can apply to hybrid OA journals, though most OA journals are no-fee and most hybrid journals are fee-based. Update (9/17/08). Also see SymmetryBreaking. Update (9/24/08). Also see Kent Anderson's comments. Update (9/24/08). Also see Chris Leonard's comments. Excerpt:
Duke Law School's OA journals and repository Nicholas MacGowan von Holstein, Duke Law Journals Lead with Open Access to Scholarship, EducationLoad, September 15, 2008. Excerpt:
Science.gov is offering a preview of version 5.0, which is about to launch (ResourceShelf says this week). Excerpt:
PS: See our past posts on Science.gov. Update (9/16/08). Version 5.0 has now launched. For details, see today's article in the Times of the Internet. The presentations from the 2nd European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine & Medicine - Researchers and Open Access (Oslo, September, 4-6, 2008), are now online. (Thanks to Yvonne Hultman �zek.)
EPA faces lawsuit for suppressing pesticide data EPA Withholds Pesticide Information While Bees Die, a press release from OMB Watch, September 9, 2008. Excerpt:
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Do law librarians guide users to OA sources of law? There are now several OA alternatives to LexisNexis and Westlaw. But how many law librarians teach them to patrons? Law Librarian Blog is running a poll to find out. Stevan Harnad, Plan B for NIH Public Access Mandate: A Deposit Mandate, Open Access Archivangelism, September 13, 2008. Excerpt:
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Update (9/15/08). Also see Stevan's reply:
Update (9/15/08). Klaus Graf argues that the email request button would be illegal under German law. Read his post in German or Google's English. Update (9/17/08). Also see Stevan's elaboration:
Abstract on measuring the growth of open science
Heather Piwowar, Measuring the adoption of Open Science, abstract for a presentation at the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (Hawaii, January 5-9, 2009).
Blog notes on OA in the Caribbean and Central America
OA between Caribbean hurricanes, Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, September 11, 2008.
OAS joins World Digital Library
OAS joins with Library of Congress on World Digital Library endeavor, press release, September 12, 2008. (Thanks to Caribbean Net News.)
The Organization of American States (OAS) has agreed to join with the Library of Congress in developing the World Digital Library, which will open to the public at its formal launch in Paris next year. Archive.org's Brewster Kahle's TED Talk
Brewster Kahle, A digital library, free to the world, TED Talks, presented December 2007, posted online September 2008.
Brewster Kahle is building a truly huge digital library -- every book ever published, every movie ever released, all the strata of web history ... It's all free to the public -- unless someone else gets to it first. Presentation on open science from Science21 conference
Cameron Neylon, Science In The Open: or How I learned to stop worrying and love my blog, presented at Science in the 21st Century: Science, Society, and Information Technology, Waterloo, Canada (September 8-12, 2008). (Thanks to Richard Akerman.)
See also our previous post on the conference.
Teresa Hackett of eIFL-IP is presenting this year's Mortenson Distinguished Lecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Abstract:
Access to knowledge (A2K) is essential for the functioning of open and democratic societies, economic development and innovation, culture and creativity. As the mission of libraries is to provide access to the world's cultural and scientific knowledge for current and future generations, libraries are natural partners in the global A2K movement. With comparisons drawn with the beginnings of the environmental movement more than fifty years ago, A2K is an umbrella that has brought together diverse groups, including consumer and disability organisations, the free software community, public health activists, as well as libraries, united by the common desire for fair access to knowledge and knowledge-based goods in the digital age. The lecture will examine the role of libraries, especially from the global south, in this nascent movement.
David Weinberger, [ae] AKMA, Joho the Blog, September 6, 2008. Blog notes on a presentation by A. K. M. Adam at A New Cultural Economy (Linz, September 5-6, 2008).
... Jacques Paul Migne discovered in the 19th century the most efficient means of editing a paper: outright plagiarism. He�d copy an entire article, while introducing it by noting where it was first published. �He scraped newsfeeds and republished them.� Migne owned five steam presses in 1861. He published a �universal theological library� comprising 25 vols of Biblical commentary, 25 vol encyc, 18 vol of Christian apologetics, 13 vols in praise of the blessed Virgin Mary, and many more. While most relied on public domain sources, he sometimes republished volumes still within copyright. It was a �theological literature Pirates Bay.� Charles Sheldon�s �In His Steps� (�What would Jesus do?�) had a technically flawed copyright notice, so it was republished without permission.
Dorothea Salo, Contrast, Caveat Lector, September 11, 2008.
Filling, managing, and staffing IRs
Dorothea Salo, What do we want from IRs, and what are we doing to repository rats?, Caveat Lector, September 10, 2008.
Impact of mass digitization on copyright
Georgia K. Harper, Mass Digitization and Copyright Law, Policy and Practice, presented at Monopoly: Playing the Innovation Game (Adelphi, Md., May 28-30, 2008).
... Today I am going to focus on the fact that the [copyright] landscape will change, but not because Congress will have implemented a different public policy by then. Rather, Congress has already become sidelined and will likely stay that way, by its own modus operandi: �negotiations among the stakeholders� are a sham. We can no longer pretend that locking the powerless in a room with the powerful will produce a compromise in the public interest. And when the powerful are locked in a room with each other, the result is no better. There are moneyed interests on both sides of the policy debate surrounding the scope and length of copyright protection, and neither of them has a clear advantage anymore. Something else has got to become the tie-breaker. ... More on the bill to overturn the NIH policy Here are some comments on the Conyers bill from around the blogosphere. From the Bioinformationista:
From Michael Eisen at It Is Not Junk :
From T.K. Kenyon on Gather:
From Meredith Wadman at The Great Beyond (from Nature):
PS. I've blogged many comments on the bill myself. Here's a quick recap to date:
Norwegian universities launch OA working group to advise the government In June 2008, Norway's Ministry of Education and Research (Kunnskapsdepartemente or KD) asked the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions (Universitets- og h�gskoler�det or UHR) for advice on how to provide OA to the nation's research output. For background, see my blog post from July 3, 2008. Now in response to the KD's request, the UHR has launched an Open Access Working Group. (Thanks to OpenAccess.no.) Read the working group home page in Norwegian or Google's English. The KD has asked for UHR's advice, and advice from the Norwegian Research Council, by December 1, 2008. Blackwell's hybrid program raises its publication fee Blackwell's Online Open hybrid journal program increased its publication fee to $3,000 for 2008. The 2007 fee was $2,600. The fee does not include VAT or page and color charges. Another patient advocacy group joins the campaign for OA The Chordoma Foundation has joined the Alliance for Taxpayer Access. Chordoma is a type of bone cancer occurring in the head and spine. |