Unglue.it has launched.

Here's an excerpt from the Frequently Asked Questions:

Unglue.it is a place for individuals and institutions to join together to give their favorite ebooks to the world. We work with rights holders to decide on fair compensation for releasing a free, legal edition of their already-published books, under Creative Commons licensing. Then everyone pledges toward that sum. When the threshold is reached (and not before), we collect the pledged funds and we pay the rights holders. They issue an unglued digital edition; you're free to read and share it, with everyone, on the device of your choice, worldwide.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship |

Librarians at the Miami University Libraries have adopted an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from "Miami University Librarians Pass Open Access Policy":

On Monday, the librarians at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio affirmed their commitment to the principles of Open Access by voting in favor of an Open Access policy. The policy, based on Harvard University's Model Policy, will increase access to librarians' scholarly articles. Librarians will begin depositing their scholarly output in the Scholarly Commons, Miami's institutional repository. Miami University Libraries is the first department on Miami's campus to successfully pass an open access policy. "I am so proud to work at Miami today," said Jen Waller, Interdisciplinary Research Librarian and Chair of the Libraries' Scholarly Communication Working Group. "My colleagues' vote in favor of an open access policy allows the Miami University Libraries to be a leader in Open Access on the Miami campus. Additionally, the adoption of this policy will allow librarians here to gain first hand knowledge of how facets of open access work, which will greatly improve our outreach efforts to faculty on campus."

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |

The Pacific University Library has published the first issue of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, which is an open access journal under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Here's an excerpt from the What is in a Name? Introducing the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication:

The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication (JLSC) was founded to both recognize and embody this increasingly prominent role of libraries in shaping the future of scholarly communication. Recognize, in that we believe that scholarly communication librarianship has become a core service area for academic libraries, and is deserving of an intellectual home. The increase in seminars, articles and dedicated conferences—like the notable IMLS-funded Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success¹⁰ project—all demonstrate the growing interest in library scholarly communication initiatives, and the need for a dedicated venue for exchange. Embody, in that this is a journal published by an academic library, with an editorial board of library scholar-practitioners, devoted to open, free and flexible communication of knowledge in our field. And in the interest of keeping the channels of communication as open as possible, we also recognize that there are other stakeholders, such as publishers, technologists, and research funders, who play an integral role in determining the future of scholarly communication. Our profession is best served by engaging in honest dialogue with them, and we hope that the work we publish will reflect these types of discussions and collaborations.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship |

As of 4/30/12, the Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. has had over 500,000 file requests. Of those file requests, over 439,000 have been page views (either XHTML files for bibliography sections or PDF files for the entire bibliography).

In 2005, the bibliography was published by the Association of Research Libraries in print form, and ARL released an open access PDF file as well. The author then added a web site for the bibliography.

All versions of the bibliography are under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

In 2010, the author released a second version of the bibliography, Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography, as a PDF file, a paperback, and a web site under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. While the first version of the bibliography had a very wide range of included material, the second version, reflecting the rapid maturation of the field, primarily included books and published journal articles.

Since digital publication in 9/9/10, the second version has had over 153,000 file requests. Of those file requests, over 132,000 have been page views.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

The Executive Office of the President's National Science and Technology Council has released Interagency Public Access Coordination: A Report to Congress on the Coordination of Policies Related to the Dissemination and Long-Term Stewardship of the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research.

Here's an excerpt:

To summarize, the Administration been working on issues related to the management of and access to the results of federally funded scientific research. In accordance with ACRA, OSTP established the Task Force on Public Access to Scholarly Publications and re-chartered the Interagency Working Group on Digital Data under the NSTC CoS. Those groups are evaluating objectives for increasing access to and improving the management of the results of federally funded scientific research.

Three RFI's have been issued, two on public access to scholarly publications and one on the management of digital data. Responses to those RFIs are being analyzed now, but initial results show strong public support for increasing access to scholarly publications describing the results of federally funded research and for improving scientific data management and access. The NSTC groups are continuing to consider the public comments received from the RFIs and how they should be incorporated into the objectives required by ACRA. Once they have finalized their decisions, the objectives of all three groups will be combined and presented to the CoS. There, agency leadership will consider implementation options. In addition, the CoS will help prioritize the remaining responsibilities as described in ACRA Section 103 including further public consultation and international outreach necessary for developing agency-specific policies.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This bibliography is recommended for everyone interested in open access publishing." — M. Blobaum, Journal of the Medical Library Association 100, no. 1 (2012): 73. | Digital Scholarship |

Brian A. Nosek and Yoav Bar-Anan have self-archived "Scientific Utopia: I. Opening Scientific Communication" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

Existing norms for scientific communication are rooted in anachronistic practices of bygone eras, making them needlessly inefficient. We outline a path that moves away from the existing model of scientific communication to improve the efficiency in meeting the purpose of public science—knowledge accumulation. We call for six changes: (1) full embrace of digital communication, (2) open access to all published research, (3) disentangling publication from evaluation, (4) breaking the "one article, one journal" model with a grading system for evaluation and diversified dissemination outlets, (5) publishing peer review, and, (6) allowing open, continuous peer review. We address conceptual and practical barriers to change, and provide examples showing how the suggested practices are being used already. The critical barriers to change are not technical or financial; they are social. While scientists guard the status quo, they also have the power to change it.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010: "SEP [Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography] is compiled with utter professionalism. It reminds me of the work of the best artisans who know not only every item that leaves their workshops, but each component used to create them—providing the ideal quality control." — Péter Jacsó ONLINE 27, no. 3 (2003): 73-76. | Digital Scholarship |

Lydia Pallas Loren has self-archived "Abandoning the Orphans: An Open Access Approach to Hostage Works" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Metaphors shape how we approach challenging legal issues. Reorienting the metaphor from "orphans" to "hostages" illuminates the real problem with copyright owners that cannot be located: lock-up of expressive works. Solving the hostage work problem requires creating protections for those who act as "special forces" and free the hostages. If an entity is not negligent in gathering and disclosing information that identifies a work as a "hostage work" and that entity provides an open access copy of the work together with the hostage freeing information, then that entity should be immune from monetary liability for infringement. Copyright owners should retain the ability to obtain injunctive relief to either correct inaccurate status or owner information, or obtain removal of the digital copy of the work from an open access database. This injunctive power would translate into an enforceable obligation of open access providers to update inaccurate information and remove works inappropriately designated as hostage works. For derivative work creators, courts should freely apply equitable doctrines to prevent inappropriate injunctive relief and limit the ability of later re-surfacing copyright owners to sue derivative work creators.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

JISC has released Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations.

Here's an excerpt:

We have learned in this study that the voluntary and charitable sector has an appetite and need for scholarly research that it cannot currently satisfy. The organisations contributing to the study have described the importance of research to the voluntary and charitable sector's commitment to playing its very distinctive role in the most effective way it can. In scoping interviews, case studies and survey responses, VCOs have identified a consistent set of barriers to accessing research. They have shown too that they are creative and resourceful, finding ways to overcome these barriers some of which might place them on or over the border of copyright infringement. We do not think that VCOs should be put in the position of having to choose between what is legally permitted and what they feel is ethically required of them in order to fulfil their charitable objectives. We think too that if the VCS is being asked to expand its role and play an increasing part in delivering public services, then access to research is essential. In this final chapter, we provide some recommendations which, we hope, will go some way to widening the voluntary and charitable sector's access to scholarly research outputs.

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals: This is an excellent resource for its extensive background documentation of the open access arguments and issues. — Ann Jensen, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, no. 43 (2005) | Digital Scholarship |

JISC has released Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector.

Here's an excerpt:

The total cost to the public sector of accessing journal papers is around £135 million per annum. The savings that accrue from the availability of Open Access articles (using both Green and Gold routes) amount to £28.6 million (£26 million in access fees and £2.6 million in time savings).

Extending the number or articles available through Open Access further increases the potential for savings. Each extra 5% of journal papers accessed via Open Access would save the public sector £1.7 million, even if no subscription fees were to be saved. Increasing the number of journal papers accessed through Open Access to 25% would save the public sector an extra £29 million.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |

MIT has established an Open Access Working Group in response to Elsevier's new article posting policies.

Here's an excerpt from the "New Open Access Working Group Formed: Formulating Response to Elsevier's Policy Change":

The wording [of the Elsevier posting policy] is very unclear; no one is quite sure what a "systematic posting mandate" is. Duke, for one, who has an open access policy very much like ours, has concluded that such policies aren't "mandates" since they allow people to opt out, and hence that they are not covered by the new Elsevier posting policy. But it is clear that Elsevier is trying to do what it can to undermine such policies, and to confuse faculty about what they are and are not allowed to do. Certainly that is the interpretation of the Coalition for Open Access Repositories, who, in their response, "strongly oppose the changes made by Elsevier to its article posting policies" and "join the research community in condemning Elsevier for its recent business practices and lobbying that undermine policies and activities promoting open access to scholarly literature."

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship |

Harvard University's Faculty Advisory Council on the Library has issued "Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing: Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot Be Sustained"

Here's an excerpt:

Since the Library now must change its subscriptions and since faculty and graduate students are chief users, please consider the following options open to faculty and students (F) and the Library (L), state other options you think viable, and communicate your views:

1. Make sure that all of your own papers are accessible by submitting them to DASH in accordance with the faculty-initiated open-access policies (F).

2. Consider submitting articles to open-access journals, or to ones that have reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to open access (F).

3. If on the editorial board of a journal involved, determine if it can be published as open access material, or independently from publishers that practice pricing described above. If not, consider resigning (F).

4. Contact professional organizations to raise these issues (F).

5. Encourage professional associations to take control of scholarly literature in their field or shift the management of their e-journals to library-friendly organizations (F).

6. Encourage colleagues to consider and to discuss these or other options (F).

7. Sign contracts that unbundle subscriptions and concentrate on higher-use journals (L).

8. Move journals to a sustainable pay per use system, (L).

9. Insist on subscription contracts in which the terms can be made public (L).

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |

Moin Ahmad and Mohammad Nazim have self-archived "Citing Patterns in Open Access Journals: A Study of D-Lib Magazine" in E-LIS.

Here's an excerpt:

The study was intended to investigate the pattern of citing references of research articles published in D-Lib Magazine during 2002-2008. A total of 4775 citations were collected from 295 articles published during the period. Articles classified as editorial materials, power point slides, book reviews, columns, reports and news items were excluded. References all articles were collected and Microsoft Office Excel 2007 was used for analyses. The aspects analysed focus on year-wise distribution of articles and cited references, types of documents cited, country and language of cited documents, file format and domain of cited references, etc.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |