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 |

The University of Illinois at Chicago Library faculty have approved an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

"An open access policy ensures the broadest possible access to the fruits of research and scholarship, and important goal of academic research libraries. We hope this action by the Library faculty will serve as a model to other college faculties at UIC," said University Librarian Mary Case.

The policy requires Library faculty to grant UIC a non-exclusive license to make copies of their articles available publicly in the UIC's open access institutional repository, INDIGO. The policy also encourages faculty to retain the copyright to their work. . . .

Drafted by the Scholarly Communication Committee, the policy also exhibits flexibility toward faculty pursuing tenure. The committee, understanding the importance for such faculty to publish in peer-reviewed journals that can require an author to sign over copyright to publish, will grant case-by-case waivers. When a faculty member must sign over copyright, he or she is encouraged to deposit a draft of their article in the UIC open access institutional repository, noted [Sandra] De Groote.

| 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 |

According to a tweet today by Geneva Henry, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship at Rice University’s Fondren Library, Rice University’s Faculty Senate has approved an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the Rice University Open-Access Mandate Position Paper (2/12/2012):

To assist Rice in distributing the scholarly publications, as of the date of publication, each faculty member will make available an electronic copy of his or her final version of the publication at no charge to a representative designated by the Provost's Office in an appropriate format (such as PDF) specified by the Provost's Office. The Provost's Office will make the scholarly publication available to the public in an open-access repository, the Rice Digital Scholarship Archive. Upon request, the scholarly publication will not be made available to the public for an agreed upon embargo period.

| 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 |

SPARC has released "You've Signed on to the Boycott, Now What? A SPARC Guide for Campus Action."

Here's an excerpt:

In light of the recent, failed attempt to abridge access to scholarly articles via the Research Works Act (RWA), a growing number of researchers have expressed their frustration with the status quo in scholarly publishing, and are interested in learning about concrete actions that they can take to effect positive change. SPARC has prepared this resource for our members, to help you to engage your faculty and researchers, and talk with them about options for taking such action.

| 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 |

SPARC has released an updated version of "Open Access Funds in Action," which describes "North American funds in action across a variety of characteristics, including fund size, sponsorship, requirements, and more."

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

The World Bank has adopted an Open Access Policy that puts its works under a CC BY 3.0 License.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Two years after opening its vast storehouse of data to the public, the World Bank is consolidating more than 2,000 books, articles, reports and research papers in a search-engine friendly Open Knowledge Repository, and allowing the public to distribute, reuse and build upon much of its work—including commercially. . . .

The repository and Creative Commons licenses are part of a new open access policy that takes effect on July 1 and will be phased in over the next year.

Read more about it at "World Bank to Introduce Open Access Policy."

| Works about Open Access by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. | Digital Scholarship |