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More non-OA publishers supporting SURF / JISC principles
Annemarie Beunen, Acceptance of the JISC/SURF Licence to Publish & accompanying Principles by traditional publishers of journals, SURFfoundation report, dated December 2007 but apparently released February 29, 2008. From the February 29 announcement and summary:
Update. Also see Stevan Harnad's comments. Update. Also see the article in Information World Review, March 12, 2008. Lieberman renews call for OA for CRS reports Lieberman Calls for Wider, Easier, Timely Access to CRS Reports, press release, U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, February 28, 2008. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) See also Matthew Weigelt, Sen. Lieberman wants congressional research to be public, Federal Computer Week, February 28, 2008. Lieberman is asking the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which has jurisdiction over the internal affairs of the Senate, ... to make unclassified [Congressional Research Service] reports available on a public database, where the reports would be automatically posted after CRS publishes or updates them ... N.B. As works of the federal government, CRS reports are in the public domain. However, CRS reports are currently confidential: research is done at the request of a Congressperson, who has sole discretion to release the research. Lieberman is seeking action by the Rules Committee on S. Res. 401, which would post all unclassified reports in a public database. For background, see past OAN posts on CRS reports. Elsevier: Electronic ILL requires intermediate print copy
A recent discussion on the Liblicense-L list (beginning with this post by Beth Jacoby on February 25) has highlighted Elsevier's policies for inter-library loan of its electronic journal articles: To fulfill an ILL request, print the electronic article, then scan it back into the computer to send it. See the February 28 post by Daviess Menefee of Elsevier Library Relations, or Elsevier's policy page last updated February 7.
In a February 29 post at DigitalKoans, Charles Bailey provides some background: Since, in the U.S., print journals are owned, are subject to the "first sale doctrine," and are covered by long-standing CONTU Guidelines, libraries have not had to generally grapple with complex ILL issues for them; however, e-journals from major publishers are licensed, licenses are publisher-specific, and the terms of the license agreements determine if and how ILL can be performed.A request has also been posted on the list for Elsevier to explain the rationale behind this policy, to which there has not yet been a response. (We'll add it here if/when there is.) Comment. Any unauthorized use of copyrighted content may be defensible as fair use under U.S. law. But there is less clarity regarding such uses than the fairly well-established ILL guidelines. Update. Via the Internet Archive, this aspect of Elsevier's policy appears to date back to at least 2005. Update. On March 3, Elsevier's Menefee posted a response: As to why we require printing first (and our understanding is that most publishers also do this), the reasons are fairly simple. First, this is most closely analogous to the traditional and well-understood practices of print, where one photocopies or scans the print. What is received by the requester is about the same quality copy. A new OSI-supported OA source book, Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, February 29, 2008. Excerpt:
AALL thanks Chief Justice Roberts The American Association of Law Libraries has publicly released its February 27 letter to Chief John Roberts, thanking him for authorizing a pilot project of (limited) free public access to PACER, the government database of online docket information for most US federal courts. Presentations from SCOAP3 meeting The presentations from the SCOAP3 US Focal Meeting (Berkeley, February 29, 2008) are now online. Call for OA to publicly-funded research data in the EU Philipa Mladovsky, Elias Mossialos, and Martin McKee, Improving access to research data in Europe, BMJ, February 9, 2008. An editorial. (Thanks to Napoleon Miradon.) Only a small fragment is free online for non-subscribers, like me:
OA and the differences between journal culture and book culture Michael Jensen, Open Access, re Journals vs. Books, Publishing Frontier, February 29, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. Jensen is a pioneer of OA book publishing. Under his leadership, the National Academies Press has been publishing dual (OA and non-OA) editions of all its research monographs since 1994. He has also written frequently about the NAP's experience that the OA editions increased the net sales of the print editions. See, for example, his articles on this from 2001, 2005, and 2007. Comments on Canadian call for OA to publicly-funded research Last October, Library and Archives Canada released its Canadian Digital Information Strategy for public comment. The draft called for "timely and open online access to Canada's public information and publicly-funded research information and data." LAC has now released the public comments. (Thanks to Heather Morrison.) Unfortunately, there's no summary, at least not yet. Without reading each response, or making a Google co-op search engine to index the collection, we won't be able to tell what they say about the call for OA to publicly-funded research. James G. Neal, Update on Key U.S. Copyright Developments, a presentation at EDUCAUSE Live, February 29, 2008.
Notes on the SCOAP3 US Focal Meeting Peter Brantley has blogged some notes on the SCOAP3 US Focal Meeting (Berkeley, February 29, 2008).
Grant for ALA copyright advocacy programs
MacArthur grant to bolster public interest, advocacy in digital copyright, press release, American Library Association, February 27, 2008.
See also the note in Library Journal's Academic Newswire. UAuckland to embed CC metadata for theses in its IR
Michelle Thorne, University of Auckland embeds CC licensing, Creative Commons blog, February 28, 2008.
Podcast on the Harvard policy and POD
The February 27 episode of Digital Campus covers the Harvard FAS policy, print-on-demand, and other topics. (Thanks to EdWired.)
JoVE to publish videos in Wiley partnership
The Journal of Visualized Experiments has inked a deal with Wiley-Blackwell journal Current Protocols. From the Blackwell press release on February 20:
Current Protocols will use its large database to identify research labs with the most advanced state-of-the art experimental approaches for filming and video publication produced by JoVE. During the first year of the collaborative work, the two companies plan to produce and publish 200 experimental videos online.On February 22, Alla Katsnelson posted on a Scientist blog that Moshe Pritsker, CEO of JoVE, told The Scientist this week that he had also signed similar deals with Annual Reviews and Springer Protocols.Attila Chordash blogs on February 26 that the videos will be apparently OA (the partner journals are not). How to choose the best license for a wiki
Hope R. Botterbusch and Preston Parker, Choosing the Best License for Wiki Content, TechNewsWorld, February 26, 2008. Does what it says on the tin.
New OA journal on research notes from BMC
BMC Research Notes is a new, peer-reviewed OA journal published by BioMed Central. Research Notes will publish "scientifically sound research across all fields of biology and medicine, enabling authors to publish updates to previous research, software tools and databases, data sets, small-scale clinical studies, and reports of confirmatory or 'negative' results ... descriptions of incremental improvements to methods ... short correspondence items and hypotheses." The journal was announced on February 26. See also this second announcement. From the former:
... BMC Research Notes provides a home for short publications, case series, incremental updates to previous work, results of individual experiments and similar material that currently lacks a suitable outlet. The intention is to reduce the loss suffered by the research community when such results remain unpublished. ...Update. See also this blog post by Matt Hodgkinson at BioMed Central. Authors: tell your librarians about anti-green journals
Heather Morrison, No to author's rights? Let your librarian know!, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, February 25, 2008.
Authors, if your publisher will not permit you to keep your rights to your own work - to self-archive as you please, to sign the Author's Addendum of your choice - be sure to let your librarian know! Contest for data mashup concepts
The Netsqured Mashup Project Challenge will award cash prizes for ideas for data mashups for social change. Deadline to submit ideas is March 14. They've got $100,000, to be divided among 20 projects. They'll also help connect projects with the help necessary to bring the idea to life. (Thanks to Science Commons.)
Perspective of the author of an OA textbook
On February 25, Ellen Finnie Duranceau posted a podcast by John H. Lienhard V, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, speaking about this OA textbook on heat transfer.
First editorial from the new editor of PLoS Biology
Jonathan A. Eisen, PLoS Biology 2.0, PLoS Biology, February 26, 2008. (See also the announcement of Eisen's appointment.)
White paper to help universities help authors comply with the NIH policy SPARC, Science Commons, and ARL Offer Options for University Implementation of New NIH Public Access Policy, a press release from SPARC, February 29, 2008. Excerpt:
Update. Also see Georgia Harper's analysis: NIH Open Access Mandate: A Careful Look at Two Options for Retaining Authors� Rights � �Do Nothing" and �Do it Early and Efficiently�. More US institutions join SCOAP3 The libraries of four of the national laboratories of the US Department of Energy have joined the CERN SCOAP3 project. The four libraries are from the Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. At the same time, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) expressed an interest in joining the project. OA platform for the German foreign historical institutes Gudrun Gersmann is building Perspectivia.net an OA platform for the research of the six German historical institutes outside Germany, such as the Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris where Gersmann is the Director. The site should launch in October 2008. (Thanks for Informationsplattform Open Access.) Also see the slide presentation on Perspectivia.net given by Gersmann and Michaell Kaiser earlier this week at the DFG-DINI conference in Berlin. Presentations on OA archiving in Germany The presentations from the DFG-DINI conference, Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Informationslandschaft in Deutschland: Chancen und Strategien beim Aufbau vernetzter Repositorien (Berlin, February 26-27, 2008), are now online. (Thanks to Informationsplattform Open Access.) Upgrade for JULIET list of funder OA policies SHERPA has upgraded its JULIET directory of funder OA policies. JULIET now tracks funder policies on three fronts: OA publishing, OA text archiving, and OA data archiving, and for each one distinguishes different levels of strength or support for OA. PS: For other directories of funder OA policies, see the BMC table and the ROARMAP list. Update. Also see the SHERPA press release on the JULIET upgrade. Open knowledge definition now in Polish The Open Knowledge Definition has been translated into Polish. State of OA in folklore studies, part 3
Jason Baird Jackson, Open Access Folkloristics (Part 3 of 3), Open Access Anthropology, February 28, 2008. Part 3 of the review of the field: see part 1 and part 2.
OA makes interdisciplinary research more visible
Chris Leonard, Open Access is the answer for interdisciplinary research, PhysMath Central Blog, February 25, 2008.
Luis Martinez Uribe has launched a blog on how the Oxford repository can support research data. The first post was February 13.
Interview with blogger John Dupuis
Bora Zivkovic, The Warlord in the Library: Interview with John Dupuis, A Blog Around The Clock, February 22, 2008. Dupuis is the author of Confessions of a Science Librarian.
Johns Hopkins joins Open Content Alliance
Sarah Grant, Hopkins digitizes special collection, Johns Hopkins News-Letter, February 21, 2008. Apparently the first materials to be digitized in the university's partnership with the Open Content Alliance are a special collection of "anti-slavery pamphlets and publications that ran from the late 19th century through the Reconstruction period" compiled by abolitionist leader James Birney.
Comment. The article makes a number of confusing statements, the most egregious of which is the claim that materials digitized through the program are "available for downloading and reuse for any member of OCA". In fact, the materials are OA, not just for universities participating in the Open Content Alliance. On Science Commons' CC Zero project
Terry Hancock, Promoting the Public Domain with Creative Commons' CC0 Initiative, Free Software Magazine, February 25, 2008. Discusses Science Commons' Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data, the CC Zero waiver and assertion, and the CC Public Domain Dedication.
Kevin Zelnio, Is the World of Taxonomy Ready for PLoS Systematics?, The Other 95% blog, February 20, 2008. (Thanks to C.R. McClain.)
University Scholarly Knowledge Inventory System (U-SKIS) is free and open source software developed at the University of Utah. U-SKIS "tracks .pdf files, records communication, and provides publisher's archiving policies to determine what may be added to institutional repositories." Version 1.0 was released on February 22. (Thanks to digitizationblog.)
Nebraska libraries to carry OA books
Timothy Vollmer, Nebraska Library Commission adds CC-licensed books to collection, Creative Commons blog, February 22, 2008.
David McArthur, National Science Digital Library: Shaping Education's Cyberinfrastructure, Computer, February 2008. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)
New OA journal on museum anthropology
Museum Anthropology Review is a new OA journal published by the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries. The journal was announced on February 21. It began in February 2007 as a pilot project. The journal is peer-reviewed and edited by Jason Baird Jackson, associate professor in folklore and ethnomusicology at IU. From the announcement, on the journal's motivation:
Comment. See also this Inside Higher Ed story on the journal. Clarification on the Gutenberg-e business model Letter from Jim Jordan about Gutenberg-e, Columbia University Press blog, February 28, 2008. Jim Jordan is the President and Director of Columbia University Press. Excerpt:
Update. Jim Jordan clarifies further in a post on LibLicense, March 6, 2008. The Caltech Library is joining CERN's SCOAP3 project, making it the second institution in the US to do so, after the University of California. More on the Harvard OA mandate from the Harvard librarian Newsmaker Interview, Part II: Harvard University Librarian Robert Darnton, Library Journal Academic Newswire, February 28, 2008. Part I of this interview appeared two days ago (and blogged here the same day). Excerpt:
Leveraging established recognition for new OA journals
Scott Jaschik, Abandoning Print, Not Peer Review, Inside Higher Ed, February 28, 2008.
Michael Geist, Canadians Are Playing Key Role in 'Books 2.0', Toronto Star, February 25, 2008. Discusses Wikitravel Press, which offers print-on-demand copies of CC-licensed books collaboratively edited online, and LibriVox, which creates audiobook recordings of public domain texts.
CARL (Canadian Association of Research Libraries) and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) have launched a Canadian version of Create Change, the useful introduction to scholarly communication and OA. From today's announcement:
Open knowledge definition in Danish The Open Knowledge Definition has been translated into Danish. Hamburg University Press has announced three new OA books. Read the announcement in German or Google's English. PS: In July 2007, the press began publishing all new titles in OA editions with a POD option. More on the OA journal fund at Berkeley The University of California at Berkeley has released more information on its fund to support OA journals (first announced and blogged here last month):
Comment. I support university funds to pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals. But I must point out that OA journals do not "typically charge" these fees. On the contrary. Most OA journals charge no publication fees. In December 2007, Bill Hooker's survey of all full-OA journals in the DOAJ found that 67% charged no publication fees. The month before, Caroline Sutton and I found that 83% of OA society journals charged no publication fees. Reflections on the university as publisher Diane Harley (ed.), The University as Publisher: Summary of a Meeting Held at UC Berkeley on November 1, 2007, Center for Studies in Higher Education, February 2008. (Thanks to Chris Kelty.) Excerpt:
OA to taxonomy research and species descriptions Donat Agosti has blogged some notes on the recent meeting, IPR and the web: challenges for taxonomy (London, February 20, 2008). Excerpt:
Also see Donat's announcement of Plazi.org, the new OA repository for biological species descriptions, which was first unveiled at the IPR workshop. Excerpt:
OA herbal database changes hands
According to a press release on February 21, the American Botanical Council has acquired the OA database HerbMed, which provides access to "scientific data underlying the use of herbs for health," and its subscription version, HerbMedPro.
Profile of Thomas Krichel of RePEc
Christian Zimmermann, Volunteer recognition: Thomas Krichel, The RePEc blog, February 21, 2008.
Comment. See also Heather Morrison's profile of Krichel from February 2006. Wilbanks on cyberinfrastructure
John Wilbanks, Cyberinfrastructure, University Policy, Innovation, john wilbanks' blog, February 21, 2008.
First US institutions join SCOAP3 The 10 campuses of the University of California became the first US institutions to join CERN's SCOAP3 project. Progress of green OA in Germany Richard Sietmann, Open Access: Der "grüne Weg" soll attraktiver werden, Heise Online, February 27, 2008. A report on first day of the DFG-DINI conference, Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Informationslandschaft in Deutschland: Chancen und Strategien beim Aufbau vernetzter Repositorien (Berlin, February 26-27, 2008). Read it in German or in Google's English. Access to clinical drug trial data in the UK Jeremy Laurance, Drug giants warned: Tell the truth on medicines, The Independent, February 27, 2008. Excerpt:
Sharing v. control: one of the defining battles of our time Charles Leadbeater just released OA versions of the first three chapters (1, 2, 3) of his new book, We Think (Profile, March 2008). Also see two videos of him discussing the book's ideas (1, 2). From his summary:
More background on the Harvard OA mandate Robin Peek, Harvard Faculty Mandates OA, a preprint of her Focus on Publishing column for the April 2008 issue of Information Today, February 27, 2008. NB: "The preprint will be removed on March 31st and the postprint will be posted 3 months after publication." Excerpt:
Rockefeller UP: No delay on implementing NIH policy Mike Rossner, Executive Director of the Rockefeller University Press, has publicly released the letter he sent to the Department of Health and Human Services, supporting the OA mandate at the NIH and opposing attempts by publishers to delay or derail it. Excerpt:
More background on the Harvard OA mandate Newsmaker Interview: Harvard University Librarian Robert Darnton, Library Journal Academic Newswire, February 26, 2008. Darnton is a Professor of History and the University Librarian at Harvard. Excerpt:
Update. Also see Part II of this interview (February 28, 2008) or my blogged excerpt. The state of OA policy in Australia Colin Steele, Open access as an article of faith, The Australian, February 27, 2008. Colin uses the new Harvard OA mandate as a prompt to review the state of OA policy in Australia. (The captious title was an editor's idea, not his.) Excerpt:
Open Medicine editorial on open science
Sally Murray, et. al, Open science, open access and open source software at Open Medicine, editorial, Open Medicine, apparently posted Feb. 10, 2008.
New directory of open courseware The folks at iBerry are compiling an annotated Open Courseware Finder. From the site:
More on collateral damage to OA Charles W. Bailey Jr., Why Digital Copyright and Net Neutrality Should Matter to Open Access Advocates, DigitalKoans, February 26, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. Charles is absolutely right. See my similar argument in Three gathering storms that could cause collateral damage for open access (March 2006). I recommend Save the Internet for those who want to track net neutrality news and learn how to support the cause in the US. R. Ramachandran, 'Moral conundrum' in medical research, Frontline, March 2008. An interview with David Baltimore, Nobel laureate and President of the AAAS. Excerpt:
Comments
InfoInnovation has blogged some notes on Robert Massie's talk at the NFAIS Annual Conference (Philadelphia, February 24-26, 2008). Massie is the president of the American Chemical Society’s Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). Excerpt:
Comment. I wish I had access to the full talk in order to see two parts in context. First, what did Massie mean by asking whether the trends toward OA (or Web 2.0?) "have to be opposed? Or assimilated?” It sounds like he thinks opposition is unnecessary and unwise. But does assimilation mean adoption? Second, I'd like to see whether he went beyond a narrow response to Peter Murray-Rust's claim that the new models were sweeping away the old, and offered a wider response to his argument that the new models were superior. Update. Also see Peter Murray-Rust's comment. More on OA to science for journalists and bloggers Amy Gahran has some good advice (today at Poynter Online) for authors of research articles with important implications for public policy:
New OA journal on information literacy The Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education is a new peer-reviewed OA journal published by the University of Bergen Library. The inaugural issue will appear in November 2008.
Free movement of knowledge, but without OA Today the Council of the European Union agreed that the EU "needs to create a "fifth freedom" - the free movement of knowledge." (Thanks to Napoleon Miradon.) From the Council report:
In elaborating what this means, the ministers mention the mobility of researchers, family-friendly scientific careers, education reforms, broadband penetration, and a new voluntary charter to manage the intellectual property of public research organizations. They do not mention open access. Comment. Nearly a year ago, EU Research Commissioner, Janez Potocnik, proposed making the "movement of knowledge" a fifth freedom guaranteed by the EU Treaty alongside the movement of goods, services, capital, and labor. He spelled out the idea in his green paper of April 4, 2007, The European Research Area: New Perspectives. This was the paper that asked ingenuously whether the EU needed an OA policy, after the February 2007 meeting in Brussels in which Potocnik had already solicited and received abundant evidence that the answer was yes. See my blog comment on the green paper at the time it was released and my later comment when the public comments on the green paper (overwhelmingly supporting an OA mandate) were released in October 2007. It's hard to avoid seeing a pattern here: first, the Research Commissioner disregards the arguments for an EU-wide OA policy, and then the EU Ministers disregard the OA connection when acknowledging the need for the fifth freedom. Update (2/27/08). Also see Napoleon Miradon's follow-up:
PS: I can add that the Slovenian Minister for Growth, ?iga Turk (no relation?), is an informed defender of OA. The OA Encyclopedia of Life announced its launch back in May 2007, but released its first OA content this week. From today's announcement:
Open Culture has put together a list of Free Online Courses from Great Universities, organized by field. Giving stuff away as a business model Chris Anderson, Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business, Wired Magazine, February 25, 2008. Anderson doesn't talk about digital scholarly publishing, though he does talk about other kinds of digital publishing. How far does his analysis carry over? Excerpt:
Profile of the free access to law movement Graham Greenleaf, Legal Information Institutes and the Free Access to Law Movement, Globalex, February 2008. (Thanks to Michel-Adrien Sheppard.) Part I is a detailed overview of the movement and Part II reviews 23 specific OA Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) from around the world. Greenleaf is a law professor at the University of New South Wales and Co-Director of AustLII. Excerpt:
Directory of free online scientific resources for developing countries EBSCO and Hasselt University in Belgium have launched an Open Science Directory. (Thanks to the INIST Libre Accès blog.) From the site:
PS: Many of the resources collected here are free online for everyone. But some of them, like the HINARI, Agora, and OARE journals, are free online only for developing countries. Senator wants more consultation with publishers on NIH policy Susan Morrisey, Specter Speaks Up On Public Access, Chemical & Engineering News, February 25, 2008.
Comments
Update. Also see the story in Library Journal Academic Newswire.
Heather Morrison, Aiming for Obscurity (definitional post), Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, February 23, 2008. Excerpt:
Also see Heather's follow-up post on why plagiarists might aim for obscurity:
Related: See my article in SOAN for October 2006:
Update. Also see Steve Lawson's comment. Educational impact beyond research impact Alireza Noruzi, Educational Impact and Open Access Journals, Webology, December 2007. An editorial. Excerpt:
Update. The same issue of Webology includes Isabel Galina's book review of Catherine Jones, Institutional repositories: content and culture in an open access environment, Chandos, August 2007. Trend toward OA to journal literature in rehab medicine Walter R. Frontera and four co-authors, Publishing in Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, March 2008. An editorial (accessible only to subscribers). From the abstract:
New OA Hindawi journal takes new approach to peer review
Scholarly Research Exchange is a new OA journal from Hindawi, for original research "in all areas of science, technology, and medicine". From the February 21 announcement:
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