DigitalKoans

The Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, Version 2 is now available from Digital Scholarship.

This bibliography presents selected English-language articles, conference papers, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories. Note that e-prints and published articles may not be identical.

For a discussion of the numerous changes in my digital publications since my resignation from the University of Houston Libraries, see Digital Scholarship Publications Overview.

The latest update of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (SEPW) is now available, which provides information about new works related to scholarly electronic publishing, such as books, e-prints, journal articles, magazine articles, technical reports, and white papers.

Especially interesting are: "Case Study: Open Access Yields Solid Growth for Hindawi," "Implementing the New NIH Policy," "In the Kingdom of the Blind: Successfully Implementing Institutional Repositories in the United Kingdom and the SHERPA Partnership Experience," "Institutional Repositories: The Experience of Master's and Baccalaureate Institutions," "The Justification of Intellectual Property: Contemporary Philosophical Disputes," Key Concerns within the Scholarly Communication Process: Report to the JISC Scholarly Communications Group, Open Doors and Open Minds: What Faculty Authors Can Do to Ensure Open Access to Their Work through Their Institution, Research Library Publishing Services: New Options for University Publishing, and "Supporting the Research Base: The Research Information Network and Scholarly Communications in the United Kingdom."

The Open Access Directory, a Wiki for factual information (vs. narrative descriptions) about the open access movement has been launched.

Here's the press release:

Peter Suber and Robin Peek have launched the Open Access Directory (OAD), a wiki where the open access community can create and maintain simple factual lists about open access to science and scholarship. Suber, a Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, and Peek, an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, conceived the project in order to collect OA-related lists for one-stop reference and searching.

The wiki will start operating with about half a dozen lists—for example, conferences devoted to open access, discussion forums devoted to open access, and journal "declarations of independence"—and add more over time.

The goal is to harness the knowledge and energy of the open access community itself to enlarge and correct the lists. A list on a wiki, revised continuously by its users, can be more comprehensive and up to date than the same list maintained by an individual. By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD will make it easier for users, especially newcomers, to discover them and use them for reference. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about open access.

The URL for the Open Access Directory is oad.simmons.edu.

The wiki is represented by an editorial board consisting of prominent figures in the open access movement. The Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at Simmons College hosts and provides technical support to the OAD.

Editors and administrators

Robin Peek. Editor, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College

Athanasia Pontika. Assistant Editor, Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College

Terry Plum. Technical Coordinator, Assistant Dean for Technology and Director, Simmons College

Editorial board members

Charles Bailey. Publisher, Digital Scholarship

Leslie Chan. Program Supervisor for New Media Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough

Heather Joseph. Executive Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

Melissa Hagemann. Open Society Institute

Peter Suber. Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School, and Senior Researcher at SPARC

Alma Swan. Key Perspectives Ltd

John Wilbanks. Vice President, Creative Commons

Read more about it at "Launch of the Open Access Directory."

The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2007 Annual Edition is now available from Digital Scholarship.

Annual editions of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography are PDF files designed for printing. Each annual edition is based on the last HTML version published during the edition's year.

The SEPB 2007 Annual Edition is based on Version 70 (12/18/2007). The printed bibliography is over 260 pages long. The PDF file is over 1 MB.

In addition to updated URLs, hundreds of additional URLs have been added to the SEPB 2007 Annual Edition. (The additional URLs will be added to Version 72 of the SEPB HTML edition.)

For a discussion of the numerous changes in my digital publications since my resignation from the University of Houston Libraries, see Digital Scholarship Publications Overview.

CRIA has released Strategies for Open and Permanent Access to Scientific Information in Latin America: Focus on Health and Environmental Information for Sustainable Development, a report about the 2007 workshop of the same name.

Read more about it at "Workshop Report: Strategies for Open, Permanent Access to Scientific Information."

CrossRef and iParadigms will launch CrossCheck in June, which will allow publishers to analyze content in both publisher systems and Internet Web sites in order to identify works that may have been plagiarized.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

CrossRef is partnering with iParadigms, LLC to offer its members—leading scholarly and professional publishers—the opportunity to verify the originality of works submitted for publication using the iThenticate service to check against a vast database of proprietary as well as open web content. Until now, there was no automated way to check submissions against previous publications because the published literature had not been indexed and "text fingerprinted" for this purpose. The CrossCheck database will include the full-text journals of leading academic publishers, and is expected to grow very rapidly over the coming months as CrossRef member publishers sign up for the service.

CrossCheck will be available to all CrossRef members who opt to contribute their content to the database. To use the service publishers will need to integrate the checking tool into their editorial processes and develop suitable policies and guidelines. CrossRef is working with iParadigms, member publishers, and editorial system software producers on appropriate technical information and guidelines for CrossCheck.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Kate Wittenberg, Director of the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia (EPIC), will leave that post on June 30. Wittenberg says that she was told that Columbia University plans to shut down its electronic publishing operation.

Read more about it at "Is E-Publishing at Columbia U. on the Ropes?"

The Cornell University Library and Duke University Press have announced that they will collaborate on the future development of Project Euclid.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Effective July 2008, Duke will provide publishing expertise in marketing, sales, and order fulfillment to Project Euclid's participating publishers and institutional subscribers. Duke will work to broaden and deepen Project Euclid's subscriber base, resulting in greater global exposure for 54 journals and a growing number of monographs and conference proceedings. Cornell will continue to provide and support the vital IT infrastructure for Project Euclid and assume responsibility for archiving and preservation activities, ensuring robust and reliable access to the content deposited with Project Euclid for future scholars, researchers, and students.

Now home to 93,000 journal articles (75% of which are open access), along with 60 monographs and conference proceedings, Project Euclid and its partner publishers will benefit from Duke's commitment to Project Euclid's mission and from the Press's publishing proficiency, reputation for quality consciousness, and university-based value system. Duke's recent initiative to expand its journals publishing program into science, technology and medicine further ensures that together the Cornell Library and Duke University Press will achieve Project Euclid's goal to become a primary destination site for mathematicians and statisticians. . . .

This joint venture was undertaken in cooperation with the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), an alliance of universities, research libraries, and organizations, created by the Association of Research Libraries.

Leadership for Project Euclid will be assumed by management at both Cornell and Duke.

EDUCAUSE has released a podcast of an interview with Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information at the CNI Spring 2008 Task Force Meeting. Lynch discusses cyberinfrastructure, the role of universities in disseminating the knowledge they create, and other topics.