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MIT and HP transfer DSpace copyright to DSpace Foundation From yesterday's joint announcement by MIT, Hewlett-Packard, and the DSpace Foundation:
WIPO reform will advance access to knowledge William New, WIPO Launches New Agenda On IP And Development, IP Watch, September 29, 2007. Excerpt:
The 45 consensus proposals for reform are spelled out in a WIPO report from September 17. Excerpt:
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M. Carl Drott, Open Access, Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, September 28, 2007. Not even an abstract is free online, at least so far. The Public Library of Science (PLoS) has added a section of Questions about the PLoS Hubs to its page of FAQs. Excerpt:
New OA journal on social policy People, Place and Policy Online is a new peer-reviewed OA journal from Sheffield Hallam University. The inaugural issue is now online. (Thanks to antropologi.info.) An OA journal database for developing countries Edward M. Corrado, An Open Source, Open Access Journal Database Appliance: A Proposal, a slide presentation at the IFLA meeting, Managing technologies and library automated systems in developing countries (Dakar, August 16, 2007).
Nature OA supplement on ageing Nature has created another OA supplement, this time on Ageing. (Thanks to Bayblab.) BL and Microsoft digitize 19th century books Cristina Jimenez, British Library books go digital, BBC News, September 28, 2007. Excerpt:
Comment. I can't tell whether access to these digital editions will be free of charge for everyone or only free of charge to higher education institutions in the UK. Some Microsoft digitization projects are part of the Open Content Alliance, which is fully committed to OA, and some are not. For other access concerns, see the blog comments by Andy Powell and Stephen Downes. Shifting library resources from ILL to IRs Heather Morrison, From interlibrary loans to institutional repository department: a natural transition, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, September 28, 2007. Excerpt:
NSF/JISC workshop report endorses OA mandate William Y. Arms and Ronald L. Larsen, The Future of Scholarly Communication: Building the Infrastructure of Cyberscholarship, September 26, 2007. Report of the NSF/JISC Repositories Workshop (Phoenix, April 17-19, 2007). Excerpt:
Dominique Babini, Web access to social science journals in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean – the case of CLACSO's network, a slide presentation at the First International Public Knowledge Project (PKP) Scholarly Publishing Conference, Simon Fraser University, July 11-13, 2007. Some highlights: of 168 social science journals from 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, 63% of the journals offer OA to all their articles (slide 10), and these account for 97% the articles (slide 12). Tom Wilson, Open access again, Information Research Weblog, September 28, 2007. Excerpt:
Update. I just received a response from Fred Friend and post it with his permission: The JISC issued an open invitation to tender for bids from journals in support of gold OA author charges, so any or all of the small circulation journals to which Tom Wilson refers could have applied for funding. The bids received were largely from small or medium-sized society or university publishers. The money was used to fund publication charges for OA authors and very little if any would have made its way into the pockets of shareholders. An independent evaluation report rated the funding a success in raising the profile of open access publication. New OA journal on childhood studies Childhoods Today is a new peer-reviewed OA journal published by the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth at the University of Sheffield. The inaugural issue was published in July. Presentations on OA and development Abstracts of the presentations from the Workshop of the Information Management Working Group (IMWG) of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) (The Hague, September 26-28) are now online. All 11 presentations from yesterday were part of a panel on The relevance of Open Access for Global Development, Development Cooperation and Research.
Fund-raiding milestone for Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy SEP Reaches Significant Fund Raising Goal! NEH Matching Funds Secured, an update from SPARC, September 25, 2007. Excerpt:
On Monday there was a panel discussion on open notebook science at Nature Island, Second Life. From Science in the Open:
Nigerian librarian honored for OA work The Nigerian Library Association has honored Ezra Shiloba Gbaje for launching an institutional repository for Ahmadu Bello University. From today's announcement by eIFL:
PS: Congratulations, Ezra! Free online access to public geodata in Norway Michael Cross, Digital Norway sweeps away barriers to information sharing, The Guardian, September 27, 2007. Excerpt:
The Open University has officially launched its institutional repository, Open Research Online. (Thanks to Les Carr.) The presentations from Berlin 5 Open Access: From Practice to Impact: Consequences of Knowledge Dissemination (Padua, September 19-21, 2007) are now online. There are abstracts and in most cases full-texts as well. In the case of the important closing keynote by Mariano Gago, Portugal's Minister of Science Technology and Higher Education, there should be both full-text and video, but at the moment both are unreadable. (I'd assume the problem is temporary and keep trying both links.) U of California supports an OA mandate at the NIH The University of California has released a September 24 letter from Provost Wyatt Hume to Senator Diane Feinstein, supporting an OA mandate at the NIH. Here's the entire letter, minus the salutation and valediction:
Comment. Kudos to the U of California and Provost Hume. I hope this will inspire other institutions, and individual citizens, to contact their Senators before the week is out. HHMI Expresses Support for Springer Open Choice, a press release from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, September 27, 2007. Excerpt:
Also see the (same) press release from Springer. Comment. I applaud this step. As I said about HHMI's similar deal with BMC:
Risks to publishers are not risks to peer-reviewed journals Stevan Harnad, Journal Title Migration and University Resource Reallocation, Open Access Archivangelism, September 27, 2007.
Comment. Exactly. Stevan has more detail in the body of his post (I've quoted just the summary) and I have more detail as well in Sections 12-15 of this article from the September issue of SOAN. New issue of JoDI devoted to repositories The new issue of the Journal of Digital Information (vol. 8, no. 2, 2007) is devoted to digital curation and trusted repositories. Most of the articles are OA-relevant:
Alexis Madrigal, Foundations of Science: Research Integrity or Publisher Profits? Wired News, September 26, 2007. Excerpt:
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More on the pricing crisis: Michigan cancels 2,500 subscriptions Emily Barton, To save money, 'U' cuts journals, The Michigan Daily, September 24, 2007. (Thanks to LIS News.) Excerpt:
Comment. The U of Michigan Library is one of the largest and best-funded in the US. Large-scale cancellations like this one belie publisher claims that everyone who needs access to subscription journals already has access. Harvard Faculty Council recommends an OA policy Alexandria Hiatt, Profs Might Make Their Articles Free, Harvard Crimson, September 27, 2007. Excerpt:
Comments. Kudos to Stuart Shieber and the Faculty Council. The details of the policy are not yet public. It appears to go much further than a mere request or recommendation, however, and actually shift the default from non-archiving to archiving. Faculty may opt out but must make an affirmative decision to do so. I'll post more later as I learn more.
OA to back run of Saudi J of Gastroenterology The Saudi Journal of Gastroenterology (already OA) has created OA to its full back run. SJG is owned by the Saudi Gastroenterology Association and published by MedKnow. Barbara Kirsop has blogged some notes on the the Berlin 5 conference (Padua September 19-21, 2007). Excerpt:
Update. Also see Barbara's report on Berlin 5 for the BMC blog, emphasizing OA progress in developing countries. Siva Vaidhyanathan's real-time OA book on Google Siva Vaidhyanathan is writing his new book --The Googlization of Everything-- in real time, with OA for each new draft and installment, and OA to a steady stream of reader comments, at a web site provided by the Institute for the Future of the Book. Robert J. Stanley, The Open Access Issue Revisited, American Journal of Roentgenology, October 2007. An editorial. Not even an abstract is free online, at least so far. Update. I just got access to the full text. There is no abstract and I won't bother to blog an excerpt. Stanley believes the current NIH policy was requested by PLoS (when it was ordered by Congress). He seems to believe that all OA journals charge author-side publication fees (when the majority do not). He believes the primary rationale for government OA policies is to provide access for lay readers (when it is to provide access for researchers whose institutions cannot afford subscriptions). He acknowledges that journal prices are rising faster than library budgets, but responds by pointing out problems with the business models of some OA journals. He seems unaware that some OA publishers are already profitable. He seems to believe there's no problem for OA to solve, because he hasn't seen data showing that lack of access to research impedes research. PLoS consolidates two journals PLoS Clinical Trials is moving to PLoS ONE. In the process, it will cut its publication fee in half, from $2,500 to $1,250. Update. Also see the PLoS Hub for Clinical Trials, launched this month. From the site:
The Web2forDev conference (Rome, September 25-27, 2007) is now in progress. The topic is Web 2.0 and knowledge sharing to stimulate development, and many of the presentations have an OA connection. Presentation abstracts are already online, as are videos for the presentations already given. You can also tune in to a live stream of the current presentation. Update. Ismael Peña-López is at the conference and blogging it under this category at ICTlogy. To find other bloggers, he recommends following the "web2fordev" tag at Del.icio.us, Flickr, and so on. Interview with Michele Kimpton Mary Grush interviews Michele Kimpton in Campus Technology, September 26, 2007. Kimpton is the Executive Director of the new DSpace Federation. Excerpt:
John Willinsky's keynote at PKP conference David Mattison has posted a 107-minute recording of John Willinsky's keynote at the First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference (Vancouver, July 11-13, 2007). Note that for technical reasons Mattison had to divide his recording into 11 separate files, while the conference site has an MP3 of the same presentation, apparently all in one file.
Charles W. Bailey Jr. has released version 69 of his monumental Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography. The new version cites and organizes over 3,120 print and online articles, books, and other sources on scholarly electronic publishing.
Steps toward OA for Australian public sector data Dylan Bushell-Embling, Private eyes on public data, Sydney Morning Herald, September 25, 2007. (Thanks to Anne Fitzgerald.) Excerpt:
Alexis Madrigal, Mandated Open Access Bill Stalled in Senate, Wired News, September 25, 2007.
Comment. We already knew that Cornyn planned to re-introduce FRPAA in the current session of Congress and hadn't done so yet. The fact that he doesn't have a timetable is not surprising and not a problem. Right now all Congressional attention is focused on the appropriations process (the new fiscal year starts in five days) and all OA energy is focused on the bill to strengthen the NIH policy, which is part of the appropriations process. First let's win the battle for the NIH policy and then we can refocus on FRPAA.
Please contact your Senators this week, and ask them to support an OA mandate at the NIH. Here are some links to help:
Either of these should suffice. Pick one, compose your message, and get it off. If you don't use the ALA web form, then get your Senators' contact info from CongressMerge. But if you'd like more help in writing your message, here are some more sources:
This year is our best chance ever to win an OA mandate at the NIH. But the opposition from the publishing lobby is fierce. Remember that the AAP/PSP has launched PRISM, the behemoth Copyright Alliance has weighed in, and Elsevier has hired an extra lobbying firm. If you're a US citizen, please do what you can: contact your Senators and spread the word. Update. Also see Bill Hooker's letter to his Senators. A collection of documentary videos on OA is a giant step closer to a screen near you, thanks to a grant from the Open Society Institute. See the September 17 announcement from Intelligent Television and BioMed Central:
Gabriele Beger keynote on OA at GMW 2007 Gabriele Beger, Was ist und was kann Open Access beim eLearning bewirken? A Quicktime webcast of her keynote address at the 2007 meeting of the Gesellschaft für Medien in der Wissenschaft (Hamburg, September 11-12, 2007). Beger is the Director of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg and the President of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Informationswissenschaft. Bruce Byfield, PRISM Coalition lobbies against open access, Linux.com, September 24, 2007. Excerpt:
Springer statement on the NIH policy and the surrounding debate Springer Statement on the Debate on the NIH’s Public Access Policy, an announcement from Springer, September 14, 2007. Here it is in its entirety:
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Consortial digitization project for the OCA Boston Library Consortium Partners with Open Content Alliance to Provide Public Access to Digitized Books, a press release from the Boston Library Consortium, September 20, 2007. Excerpt:
Update (9/25/07). Also see the story on this deal from Library Journal Academic Newswire. Excerpt:
Draft open data license now open for comment Jordan Hatcher, Open Data Commons - Licence now out, OpenContentLawyer, September 24, 2007. Excerpt:
More on the Smithsonian-Showtime deal Jacqueline Trescott and James V. Grimaldi, Smithsonian Channel To Make Its Debut, But Only on DirecTV, Washington Post, September 24, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: For background, see my earlier posts on the Smithsonian-Showtime deal. Update. For a more detailed analysis, see Richard Kurin, Commentary: the Smithsonian goes cable, Museum Anthropology, 30, 2 (2007) pp. 89-100. (Thanks to Jason Baird Jackson.) Thomas Goetz, "Mind the Gaps," Wired Magazine, October 2007. The article is not yet online, but Attila Csordás has rekeyed and blogged some excerpts:
Update (9/25/07). Goetz' article, It's Time to Free the Dark Data of Failed Scientific Experiments, is now OA at the Wired site. Barbara Quint, Elsevier Launches Vertical Portal With Ad Revenue Support: OncologySTAT, Information Today NewsBreaks, September 24, 2007. Excerpt:
October issue of Learned Publishing The October issue of Learned Publishing is now online. Only abstracts are free online, at least so far. Here are the OA-related articles (to judge only from their titles and abstracts):
Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Here's Some Advice That Won't Cost the AAP $500K, DigitalKoans, September 23, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: Exactly.
"Librarians need to showcase the benefits of OA" Dean Giustini interviews Courtney Crummett, UBC Academic Search - Google Scholar Blog, September 23, 2007. Crummett is an Associate Librarian at the US National Library of Medicine. Excerpt:
New OA journal in computational linguistics Linguistic Issues in Language Technology is a new peer-reviewed OA journal from Stanford's CSLI Publications. (Thanks to the Jason Adams.) Ringing an OA subtotal for OneWebDay Gavin Baker, Sixteen and counting: sharing science on the Web, This place is pretty ugly, September 22, 2007. Excerpt:
Free networking service for life scientists The PrometeoNetwork is a "free, online, global network of doctors and researchers in life sciences". Launched in January 2007, its members can already reach more than 4,000 colleagues. From the site:
Temporary free online access to books Adam Hodgkin, Exact Editions for Book Publishers, ExactEditions blog, September 22, 2007. Excerpt:
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