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More on the student campaign for OA Jennifer McLennan, New SPARC Campaign Engages Students on Open Access, ARL Bimonthly Report, No. 256, February 2008. Excerpt:
Jennifer adds new details in the January issue of the PLoS E-Newsletter for Institutional Members:
PS: The Right to Research web site will launch later this month. The publishing consultants at Greenhouse Associates have put out a list of Five Trends to Watch in 2008. The trends focus on non-academic publishing, but consider whether they apply to academic publishing as well, esp. this pair in tension:
The very idea of a funder OA mandate for books Jan Velterop, Reviewed reviews, The Parachute, January 18, 2008. Excerpt:
Comments. Whether OA mandates should ever apply to books is a fascinating question. Some thoughts:
Update. Stevan Harnad has now blogged, and elaborated, his original forum comment on books. The January issue of First Monday is now online. Here are the OA-related articles:
Barbara Lison (ed.), Information und Ethik, a large PDF containing most of the proceedings of the Third Leipzig Kongress für Information und Bibliothek (Leipzig, March 19-22, 2007), Verlag Dinges & Frick GmbH Wiesbaden, 2007. (Thanks to Klaus Graf.) Here are the OA-related articles:
Update. Herb's article has now been separately self-archived. Alexis Madrigal, Google to Host Terabytes of Open-Source Science Data, Wired Science, January 18, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. For background, see my post from March 2007. At that time, Google was offering to transfer huge datasets from lab to lab, at its own expense, provided it could make copies for offline storage and eventual Google-hosted OA. I'm very glad to see that it hasn't forgotten the OA part of the plan and is even adding tools for visualization, annotation, and user comments. Update. For a critical view of Palimpsest, see Chuck Humphrey's comments at the IASSIST blog. Overcoming obstacles to a citation index for OA articles The citation extraction process in CitEc, RePEc blog, January 16, 2008. Excerpt:
UK barcamp on the re-use of public sector information Michael Cross, 'No one in government IT will have done this before', The Guardian, January 17, 2008. Excerpt:
Also see Jonathan Gray's blog notes on the BarCamp (London, January 12, 2008). Calling on librarians to improve Wikipedia and Wikia Mark Chillingworth, Wales urges librarians to help build better Wikipedia, Information World Review, January 17, 2008. Excerpt:
Nature supplement on Planet Earth Nature has created another free online supplement: Year of planet Earth. SPARC's panel on student views at the ALA meeting Bright Futurists: Student Speakers Offer Unique Perspective at ACRL/SPARC Forum, Library Journal Academic Newswire, January 17, 2008. Excerpt:
ERC will continue to pay publication fees In my post last week about the OA mandate at the European Research Council (ERC), I couldn't tell whether ERC would continue its previous policy to pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals:
I'm happy to report that the ERC will continue to pay publication fees. (Thanks to the ERC-UK via Matthew Cockerill.) From the latest ERC Guide for [Grant] Applicants, December 27, 2007, p. 16:
This version of the Guide will apply at least until Summer 2008. UK search engine of human-vetted OA content Universities' alternative to Google launched, a press release from the University of Manchester, January 16, 2008. Excerpt:
Update. Also see Hurley Goodall, U. of Manchester Adds Digital Repositories to Academic Search Engine, The Wired Campus, January 23, 2008. Excerpt:
The January/February issue of the eIFL.net Newsletter is now online. Some tidbits:
Jocelyn Kaiser, Uncle Sam's Biomedical Archive Wants Your Papers, Science Magazine, January 18, 2008 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:
Comment. I'm confused on one point. Kaiser paraphrases Norka Ruiz Bravo: "Whereas other funders help pay author fees that some journals charge to make the full text immediately available, NIH is not offering any extra money for 'open access.'" Ruiz Bravo should know, of course, but her statement seems to conflict with Question E3 of the new FAQ:
As I read it, this passage covers publication fees at fee-based OA journals as well as page charges at TA journals. One way to reconcile it with Ruiz Bravo's statement in Kaiser's article is to be very literal. Perhaps NIH won't offer "extra money" to pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals, but it will allow grantees to use grant funds for the purpose. More later, if I learn more on this point. Today I'm facing a double whammy of software and connectivity problems. A bad crash corrupted some data files, forcing me to rely on dated back-ups, and an ice storm is causing intermittent outages. Please bear with me as I catch up.
If you use UK PubMed Central, please take this new survey. Responses are due by February 8, 2008. Katherine Nightingale, Scheme to 'share environmentally-friendly patents', SciDev.Net, January 17, 2008. Excerpt:
Also see the WBCSD press release, January 14, 2008. Mike Linksvayer, CC0 beta/discussion draft launch, CC blog, January 15, 2008. Excerpt:
Cameron Neylon, Biosciences Federation Survey on Open Access - Please do this survey! Science in the Open, January 16, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. The Biosciences Federation is willing to support OA journals if the OA business models can provide revenue assurances that BF doesn't even get from the subscription business model. The Open Research Society has officially launched. From today's announcement:
PS: For background, see these notes from October 2007 on the Greek conference where ORS President Miltiadis Lytras first introduced the new society. The EU-project Science Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF) has evolved into the independent Free Knowledge Institute. (Thanks to Glyn Moody.) From the January 14 announcement:
Update. Also see the press release from the Internet Society Netherlands. Latest CLADDIER report on data-publication linkage Brian Matthews and four co-authors, Citation, Location, And Deposition In Discipline & Institutional Repositories: Recommendations for Data/Publication Linkage, November 30, 2007. Report III for the CLADDIER Project. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.)
AAP pressures universities to limit fair use Andrea Foster, Despite Skeptics, Publishers Tout New 'Fair Use' Agreements With Universities, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 17, 2008 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:
Comments
Update. Also see the story in Library Journal Academic Newswire for January 22, 2008.
Another scientific society converts its journal to OA The Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance has published its first OA articles after converting to OA and moving from Taylor & Francis to BioMed Central. Details in today's press release:
Update. Also see the BMC blog post on JCMR's conversion. More on Nature's OA policy for genome research Kim Thomas, Nature makes genome chain officially free, Information World Review, January 16, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: For background, see my blog post from December 6, 2007. An IR for Leeds Metropolitan U Leeds Metropolitan University has launched an institutional repository. Update (1/17/08). My mistake: Leeds Metropolitan has only set up a pilot repository and is evaluating its options before launching an official, working repository. NPG compatible with funder OA mandates Alf Eaton, Depositing Nature articles in PubMed Central, HubLog, January 15, 2008. Excerpt:
Update. Here are some further details on Nature's self-archiving policy, thanks to Maxine Clarke, Nature's Publishing Executive Editor:
After a long delay, OA for NZ statutes Stephen Bell Wellington, Public Access to Legislation project online at last, Computerworld NZ, January 16, 2008. Excerpt:
More on the EU Council Conclusions on OA Stevan Harnad, Critique of EU Council's Conclusions (again heavily influenced by the publisher anti-OA lobby), Open Access Archivangelism, January 16, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: Also see my own comments on the EU Council Conclusions (one, two). OA conversion complete for nutrition journal Last October, the Scandinavian Journal of Food & Nutrition announced that in January 2008 it would convert to OA, move from Taylor & Francis to Co-Action Publishing, and change its name to Food & Nutrition Research. It has now done all that and more. It's also providing OA to its six-year backfile. Bentham's OA publishing program I recently asked Matthew Honan, Editorial Director at Bentham Science Publishers, to describe the recent progress and future plans of Bentham's OA publishing program. I thank him for permission to post his response:
Three new OA books on OA repositories An announcement from SURF today points to three new books on OA repositories from Amsterdam University Press.
From the SURF announcement:
Public funding for Germany's OA-Netzwerk project Building the German Network of Open-Access-Repositories, a press release from Germany's DINI (Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformation) project, January 16, 2008. Excerpt:
Australia's science minister supports open dissemination of science Kim Carr, Liberating the voices of science, The Australian, January 16, 2008. Senator Carr is Australia's Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. (Thanks to Colin Steele.) Excerpt:
Comment. Senator Carr is responding to the problem of political interference with science, not the problem of price barriers to publicly funded research. But the remedy may address both problems, showing that they are connected. We saw a similar development in the US in June 2006 when Sen. John McCain introduced an amendment in the Senate to ensure "the open exchange of data and results of research by Federal agency scientists" as a response to the political interference with science by the Bush administration. (Several Australian funding agencies already have OA policies to eliminate price barriers to publicly funded research.) Fight to enforce a Russian OA mandate for public info According to a 2005 Russian law, certain government information and national standards must be OA on a government web site. But the key agency is not complying and appears to have ties to businesses which have been selling the same information to the public. Last month, a new cabinet decree clarified the law (spelling out OA as access that is "free of charge") and a private institute is pushing for its enforcement. For details, see State standards become open and free of charge, C-News: Russian IT Review, January 15, 2008. Excerpt:
Aaron Swartz has launched TheInfo.org, a wiki-based collection of tools and tips for those who scrape, process, view, and host large data sets. (Thanks to Jonathan Gray.) From the site:
The January/February issue of D-Lib Magazine is now online. Here are the OA-related articles:
Entomology converts to OA after 100+ years of publication Psyche: A Journal of Entomology has converted to OA after 100+ years of publication. See today's announcement from Hindawi, the journal's new publisher:
OA articles for continuing medical education Melissa Norton, Medscape develops Continuing Medical Education based on open access research articles, BioMed Central blog, January 14, 2008. Excerpt:
Five studies of institutional repositories Kasja Weenink, Leo Waaijers, and Karen van Godtsenhoven (eds.), A DRIVER's Guide to European Repositories: Five Studies of Important Digital Repository Related Issues and Good Practices, Amsterdam University Press, January 2008. This is a dual-edition book. The print edition costs €35.00, and the OA edition is released under a CC-BY-NC-ND license. (Thanks to Napoleon Miradon.) Here are the five studies:
Update. Alma Swan's chapter was separately self-archived in September 2007 (and blogged here at the same time). Update. Also see the SURF press release on this book and two other recent, related publications (one, two). Update. Vanessa Proudman has excerpted some highlights from her chapter, Seventeen guidelines for stimulating the population of repositories. Oversimplifying the evaluation of sources Edward Bilodeau, Academic banning of Google and Wikipedia misguided, Edward Bilodeau's Weblog, January 14, 2008. Excerpt:
More on the BMC upgrade to Open Repository Tracey Caldwell, BioMed Streamlines Open Repository With DSpace Features, Linux Insider, January 15, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: For background, see BMC's announcement of the upgrade in November 2007. Archaeology journal retreats from free online access Naomi J. Norman, A Letter from the Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Archaeology, January 2008. (Thanks to Sebastian Heath via Charles Ellwood Jones.) The editorial is a free PDF, but it's locked to prevent users from cutting/pasting. (Why?) So here's a paraphrase in lieu of an excerpt: AJA used to charge for print subscriptions and make read-only PDFs available free of charge on its web site. But starting now, it will offer electronic subscriptions and (except for this editorial) stop offering free PDFs. Norman hopes this will change will expand AJA's readership. My bet is that it will have the opposite effect. AJA will still offer OA to museum exhibitions, books, images and data for selected articles, and some bibliographies. French geology journal makes its backfile OA All the back issues of Carnets de Géologie (Notebooks on Geology) are now OA through HAL. You can also access the six-year OA backfile through INIST and the Geoscience e-Journals portal. (Thanks to Hélène Bosc.) Harnessing an intellectual commons to master complexity John Wilbanks, Complexity and the Commons, John Wilbanks' blog, January 9, 2008. (Thanks to Glyn Moody.) Excerpt:
CODATA has published its Highlights from 2007. Excerpt:
More on the need for faculty education Andrea Foster, Librarian: Ohio State Professors Need Copyright Refresher, The Wired Campus, January 14, 2008.
Comments
The January issue of the DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology is devoted to open access (guest-edited by Usha Mujoo Munshi). Here are the articles:
PS: DESIDOC is India's Defence Scientific Information and Documentation Centre. Following up OA mandates with faculty education John Willinsky, When Free Access to Research Is Mandated by Law, Slaw.ca, January 14, 2008. Excerpt:
Milestone for UC eScholarship Repository UC eScholarship Repository exceeds 5 million full-text downloads, a press release from the University of California, January 14, 2008. Excerpt:
Update. Also see the brief note on this news in The Wired Campus, which is generating some interesting reader comments. (Thanks to George Porter.) Update (1/23/08). Also see Anna Opalka's story in The California Aggie. Excerpt:
Sweden's OpenAccess.se has updated its English-language page of new projects, January 14, 2008. Excerpt:
Interview with Christopher Leonard John Dupuis, Interview with Christopher Leonard, Associate Publisher of PhysMath Central, Confessions of a Science Librarian, January 14, 2008. Excerpt:
The new issue (vol. 10, no. 1, 2008) of Medicc Review is devoted to eHealth: Cuba Faces the Digital Divide. (Thanks to Matt Cockerill.) Here are the OA-related articles:
Austrian physics institute joins SCOAP3 project The Institute of High Energy Physics at the Austrian Academy of Sciences has joined CERN's SCOAP3 project. Setback for solving the orphan works problem Wendy Davis, Copyright Protection Stymies Online Archive, Online Media Daily, January 9, 2008. Excerpt:
Also see Lessig's reflections on the defeat and Aaron Swartz's observations of Lessig's oral argument. Interview with editors of an OA journal Elke Ziegler at Science.ORF.at interviews Katja Mruck und Günter Mey on OA. Read the interview in German or in Google's English. Mruck is editor-in-chief of the OA journal, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung (FQS), and Mey edits FQS Conferences, FQS Interviews, and FQS Reviews. Cameron Neylon, Open Science and the developing world: Good intentions, bad implementation? Science in the open, January 14, 2008. Excerpt:
Call for open courseware in Canada Michael Geist, Our universities could learn plenty from MIT, Toronto Star, January 14, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. MIT is also considering an OA mandate for the institutions's research output.
EPL converts to hybrid OA, joins SCOAP3 EPL and Open Access Articles, Europhysics Letters, January 2008. A "Publishers' Note" from the six-person EPL Management Committee. Excerpt:
Frederick Noronha, Open access publishing takes off in India, IANS, January 13, 2008. Excerpt:
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