The open access movement owes a huge debt of gratitude to Peter and to Gavin Baker (who joined OAN on February 03, 2008) for their incredible work on OAN, which passed 15,000 posts on September 29, 2008. Unless you have done it, it's difficult to appreciate how time-consuming doing this kind of high-volume news and commentary blogging is, which involves a considerable amount of effort to identify, filter, summarize, and comment on relevant and timely news items. OAN is not just an excellent current news source—it's an important advocacy platform and the best historical chronicle of the open access movement that exists.

Here's an excerpt from "Housekeeping":

Today I step back from systematic daily blogging in order to free up time for my new position at the Berkman Center. 

The blog itself will continue and Gavin will continue at something like his current pace.  I will continue my daily crawl for OA-related news.  I'll continue to tag what I find for the OA tracking project (OATP).  I'll continue to write the monthly SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN).  I'll continue to work full-time for OA. 

I'll even continue to blog, though only sporadically.  Open Access News (OAN) will be smaller and more selective than in the past.  I cannot assure you that the news it covers will be the most important subset.  (That presupposes that Gavin and I will be on top of all new developments and in a position to pick the most important.)  I'll blog what I notice, what moves me, and what I have time for, with the accent on the third criterion.  It should be a eclectic bunch.  I know that I'll notice a lot of important news, thanks to OATP, and I know that I'll be moved to blog a lot of it.  But because of my new projects, even the most important news will be important news that I only have time to tag, not to blog.

For a comprehensive source of OA news, subscribe to the OATP feed, which is available by RSS, email, and a blog-like web page with the most recent items displayed first.  The OATP feed has been more comprehensive than this blog since April and it grows more comprehensive and useful every day.  To help the cause, please join OATP as a tagger and help select new items for inclusion in the feed.  For more details, see the OATP home page or my SOAN article about it from May 2009. 

1. “Open Access Policy for University Of Kansas Scholarship”
2. Open Access Bill: Senators Cornyn and Lieberman Re-Introduce Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA)
3. Harvard Graduate School of Education Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy
4. AAP/PSP Endorses IPA/IFLA “Enhancing the Debate on Open Access” Statement
5. Three New Videos on Open Access from the SPARC Video Channel

In conclusion. he states:

So we at Oxford University Press support the settlement, even as we recognize its imperfections and want it made better. As Voltaire said, "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien," the perfect is the enemy of the good. Let us not waste an opportunity to create so much good. Let us work together to solve the imperfections of the settlement. Let us work together to give students, scholars, and readers access to the written wisdom of previous generations. Let us keep those minds alive.

1. Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 4
2. Google Book Search Settlement: Interview with Michael Healy, Expected Executive Director of the Book Rights Registry
3. “Google Book Search Settlement: Foster Competition, Escrow the Scans”
4. Justice Department Sends Civil Investigative Demands to Google about Google Book Search Settlement
5. “Deal or No Deal: What If the Google Settlement Fails?”

Here's an excerpt:

Try the following thought experiment. Suppose a policy on faculty were established that granted to the university a license in faculty articles but did not explicitly provide for a waiver of the license. Now imagine that a faculty member has an article accepted by a highly prestigious journal that does not allow for author distribution and will not accept an amendment of its copyright transfer policy. Perhaps the author is a junior faculty member soon up for tenure, whose promotion case will be considerably weakened without the publication in question. The author might naturally want to have the license waived even though no waiver is explicitly provided for. The faculty member is likely to storm into the dean’s office, howling about the unconscionable practice of taking rights even when it harms the faculty member. Is the university going to distribute the article anyway against the express wishes of the faculty member? Be serious. The dean says "Fine, we won’t make use of the license for this article." Voilà, a waiver. So much for university rights retention mandates.

1. “Open Access Policy for University Of Kansas Scholarship”
2. University of Kansas Becomes First U.S. Public University to Pass University-Wide Open Access Policy
3. Harvard Graduate School of Education Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy
4. “Achieving the Full Potential of Repository Deposit Policies”
5. University of Oregon Department of Romance Languages Adopts Open Access Mandate

Here's an excerpt:

Earlier this year, the Georgia Regents adopted a new copyright policy after a select committee reviewed and entirely rewrote the older one. The new policy is shorter, more easily comprehended and more pragmatic. . . .

After this new policy was adopted, attorneys for GSU filed a motion for a "protective order" which would state that only information about electronic course content going forward, under the new policy, could be "discovered" by the plaintiffs. GSU argued that since they were a state institution, and therefore entitled to immunity from damages, the plaintiffs could only get prospective relief (an injunction) and therefore should be limited to information about practices related to the policy under which GSU would go forward. After some legal maneuvering, the Judge granted this request last week.

1. Oxford University Press Backs Google Book Search Settlement
2. Public Perceptions of Copyright and the Creative Commons: Bunnyfoot User Testing Report: OPSI—Crown Copyright
3. Introducing Copyright: A Plain Language Guide to Copyright in the 21st Century
4. Podcast about Copyright Office Meeting on Copyright Exceptions for the Blind or Other Persons with Disabilities
5. Ed Felten Proposes “Three Strikes” Copyright Law for Print

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This survey was distributed to the 123 ARL member libraries in February 2009. Respondents were asked to provide information on the use of author addenda at their institutions, which rights authors were encouraged to retain, and the methods by which libraries were conducting promotion and outreach efforts on the topic of author rights and addenda. Seventy libraries (57%) responded to the survey. Of those respondents, 35 (50%) indicated that authors at their institutions were using author addenda, and 33 libraries (47%) indicated that they “did not know.” Only two libraries indicated that authors at their institutions were not using author addenda.

The majority of respondents (77%) did not formally collect information on the use of author addenda on their campuses at the time of this survey. Evidence was gathered mostly in an informal way, either when an author contacted the library with a question related to copyright or an author addendum, or through anecdotal stories of success or failure in using an addendum. Fifty-two percent (36) of the responding libraries reported that an author addendum had been endorsed by administrators or a governing body at their institution or by their consortia, while 62% (43) responded that there had been no endorsements. There had been more endorsements at the consortial level than at the institutional level. Eight libraries (12%) reported that an institutional endorsement was under consideration at the time of the survey. A larger number of libraries (46 or 68%) reported that their institution or consortium had worked to promote the use of an author addendum by providing links to an author addendum and copyright information on library Web sites or making faculty presentations on author rights (particularly pertaining to the NIH Public Access Policy).

This SPEC Kit includes documentation from respondents in the form of sample addenda, brochures, handouts, and author rights Web sites and slides from presentations to faculty and library staff.

1. A Guide for the Perplexed Part II: The Amended Google-Michigan Agreement
2. Public Perceptions of Copyright and the Creative Commons: Bunnyfoot User Testing Report: OPSI—Crown Copyright
3. Google and University of Michigan Sign Expanded Digitization Agreement
4. Long Tail Author Chris Anderson Interviewed about Free Publishing
5. University of Washington Faculty Senate Passes Resolution Concerning Scholarly Publishing Alternatives and Authors’ Rights

Here's an excerpt from Enterprise-Wide Digital Repositories and Archives:

The result is a solution which is more than the sum of its parts. Drupal with Islandora provides an easy, powerful way to create customized Web sites with an organization's own unique content and branding and offers fine control over access to collections and individual data assets. Adding the Fedora Repository provides durability to the content while also enabling seamless sharing of content with other applications. The Sun Open Archive Framework’s Preservation Software layer adds robust storage protection and data handling combined with powerful management tools, while Sun Open Storage delivers the most cost effective and easily deployed storage available. Together these components get customers up and running fast with the assurance they will be able to grow and evolve the system gracefully, protecting investments.

Read more about it at "New Fedora-based Solution Offerings from Sun and its Partners."

1. Fedora Repository 3.2.1 Released
2. Sound Archives Film Image Repository Project: SAFIR Final Report
3. The University of Tennessee Launches Its Institutional Repository, Trace
4. DSpace and Fedora Commons Merge to Form DuraSpace
5. Fedora 3.2 Released

Here's an excerpt:

RKBExplorer (http://rkbexplorer.com/) is a system for publishing Linked Data to Semantic Web standards, also providing a browser that allows users to explore this interlinked Web of Data, primarily in the domain of scientific endeavour. As part of the activity, we have harvested the metadata from a number of the larger ePrints repositories into http://eprints.rkbexplorer.com, and republished it as Linked Data. This allows the RKBExplorer browser to present a unified view of these repositories and related data from other sources such as dblp and dbpedia (a Semantic Web version of Wikipedia). Users can thus investigate concepts related to the ePrints people and articles, such as related people, projects and institutions.

1. “Keynote: Remember Repositories? They Were All the Rage”
2. Blog Reports from Open Repositories 2009
3. Microsoft Releases Research-Output Repository Platform Version 1.0
4. Policy-making for Research Data in Repositories: A Guide
5. SWORD Named Most Innovative Project at JISC Repositories and Preservation Conference

1. “RKBExplorer: Repositories, Linked Data and Research Support”
2. “Beyond Institutional Repositories”
3. Interoperable Repositories Infrastructure Project
4. Leslie Carr Identifies “Hard Working” UK and U.S. Digital Repositories
5. SWORD Named Most Innovative Project at JISC Repositories and Preservation Conference

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

As a member of our staff, you will have the opportunity to:

• Develop and support Web 2.0 technologies like blogs and wikis
• Manage websites, including http://www.nlm.nih.gov
• Manage and support applications such as Vivisimo, NLM's search engine application and TeamSite, NLM's primary web content management system
• Collaborate with the MedlinePlus management team to ensure usability and customer satisfaction on http://medlineplus.gov, NLM's consumer health website
• Serve as technical liaison to NLM's IT department

1. Library IT Jobs: Systems Librarian at Massachusetts General Hospital
2. Library IT Jobs: Systems & Electronic Services Librarian at Genesee Community College
3. Library IT Jobs: Information Systems Librarian at Queen’s University Library
4. Library IT Jobs: Systems/Electronic Resources Librarian at Pratt Institute
5. Library IT Jobs: Systems Librarian at San Jacinto College

Read more about it at "Layoffs and Restructuring Hit Harvard U. Press" and "Reorg at Harvard University Press Eliminates Six Positions."

1. Oxford University Press Backs Google Book Search Settlement
2. Open Monograph Press to Launch During Second International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference, July 8-10
3. Position Statement From University Press Directors on Free Access to Scholarly Journal Articles
4. Library/University Press Cooperation: Index of Collaborations
5. University of Pittsburgh Press Makes 500 Titles Open Access and Print-on-Demand

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Cardiff University's Information Services Directorate (INSRV) provides a full range of IS, IT and Library services, supporting staff and students in their academic, research and business functions. MWE is a large IT project involving the deployment of Portal Services, Collaborative Tools and Business Integrations to Cardiff University's users, and will transform the day-to-day working experience of staff and students. The Institutional Repository (ORCA—Online Research @ Cardiff) is a digital repository for the University's research publications, making the full text freely available where possible.

The I-WIRE Project will develop a workflow and toolset, integrated into the MWE research portal, for the submission, indexing, and re-purposing of data and full text for staff publications in ORCA. You will have a significant role in the successful delivery of this externally-funded project.

1. Digital Library Jobs: Associate Director for Technical and Digital Services at Florida International University
2. Digital Library Jobs: Institutional Repository and Digital Collections Librarian at Missouri University of Science and Technology
3. Digital Library Jobs: Oregon Digital Newspaper Project Manager
4. Digital Library Jobs: Digital Repositories Manager at University of Leeds
5. Digital Library Jobs: Scholarly Communication Librarian at University of Ottawa

Here's an excerpt:

The Chesapeake Project began as a collaborative, two-year pilot program with the goal of preserving born-digital legal information published directly to the Web. It was implemented in early 2007 by the Georgetown Law Library and the State Law Libraries of Maryland and Virginia. Having successfully completed its pilot phase, The Chesapeake Project' legal information archive is now expanding.

The following document comprises the final evaluation and account of The Chesapeake Project's accomplishments during its two-year pilot phase, spanning from February 27, 2007, to February 28, 2009.

During this time, the project's digital archive was populated with more than 4,300 digital items representing nearly 1,900 Web-published titles, the vast majority of which have no print counterpart. Each of these titles were harvested from the Web, stored within a secure digital archive and assigned permanent archive URLs. Today, each archived digital title remains accessible to users, despite whether or not the original digital files have been altered or removed from their original locations on the Web.

A 2008 analysis of the digital archive's content showed that more than eight percent of the titles archived by The Chesapeake Project had disappeared from their original URLs within the project's first year, but remained accessible thanks to the project's efforts. The current evaluation demonstrates that this figure has increased significantly over the past year. In fact, as of March 2009, nearly 14 percent of the project's archived titles—approximately one in seven—have disappeared from their original locations on the Web.

1. Blog Reports about the National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program Partners Meeting
2. Curating Atmospheric Data for Long Term Use: Infrastructure and Preservation Issues for the Atmospheric Sciences Community
3. DPC What’s New in Digital Preservation, No. 20
4. Keeping Research Data Safe 2: The Identification of Long-lived Digital Datasets for the Purposes of Cost Analysis: Project Plan
5. Digital Preservation: PARSE.Insight Project Reports on First Year Achievements

Here's an excerpt:

Contemporary scholarly discourse follows many alternative routes in addition to the three-century old tradition of publication in peer-reviewed journals. The field of High- Energy Physics (HEP) has explored alternative communication strategies for decades, initially via the mass mailing of paper copies of preliminary manuscripts, then via the inception of the first online repositories and digital libraries.

This field is uniquely placed to answer recurrent questions raised by the current trends in scholarly communication: is there an advantage for scientists to make their work available through repositories, often in preliminary form? Is there an advantage to publishing in Open Access journals? Do scientists still read journals or do they use digital repositories?

The analysis of citation data demonstrates that free and immediate online dissemination of preprints creates an immense citation advantage in HEP, whereas publication in Open Access journals presents no discernible advantage. In addition, the analysis of clickstreams in the leading digital library of the field shows that HEP scientists seldom read journals, preferring preprints instead.

1. “Beyond Institutional Repositories”
2. Interoperable Repositories Infrastructure Project
3. Japanese Institutional Repositories: IRDB Contents Analysis System Enhanced
4. Blog Reports from Open Repositories 2009
5. Digital Repositories Workshop: Tools and Infrastructure Presentations

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Sixty percent of professional and scholarly societies believe that the global economic downturn might be a stimulus to introducing efficiencies within their organizations, while 57% think it might provide opportunities for launching new activities or services for their members, according to a new study presented at the Wiley-Blackwell Executive Seminar held at the Royal Society, London, on June 19th 2009.

The study, carried out by Wiley-Blackwell, the leading publisher for professional and scholarly societies, examined the potential impact of the economic downturn on its society publishing partners. Sixty-eight percent characterized the global economic downturn as moderately negative, while 17% stated that it will have minimal negative impact or may even be beneficial.

Asked to rank the expected impact of the economic downturn on each category of their organization’s revenues or assets, more than 75% of society officers believed that there would be a very or slightly negative impact on their membership dues and conference income, with the most concern expressed about endowments and investments. Thirty-two percent did not anticipate any change in income from publishing, forty-seven percent believed it could be slightly affected, while 17% percent felt this area may be very affected.

In terms of strategies to ride out the economic crunch, 41% said that they would consider downsizing while a further 41% said they would consider expanding. More than half (54%) felt that the way to navigate the recession was outsourcing some of their core activities, such as publishing. Two-thirds thought that their publishing needs would not change during the recession, while one-third thought they would. . . .

The survey, carried out by Wiley-Blackwell in Spring 2009, was completed by 47 officers from scholarly and professional societies ranging in size from less than 500 members to more than 25,000, and from a variety of subject disciplines. The majority of respondents were based in Europe and the United States.

1. Open Monograph Press to Launch During Second International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference, July 8-10
2. John Wiley & Sons Announces Fiscal Year 2009 Results and Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2009 Results
3. “Scholarly Presses Discuss What It Takes to Survive”
4. AAP/PSP Endorses IPA/IFLA “Enhancing the Debate on Open Access” Statement
5. Position Statement From University Press Directors on Free Access to Scholarly Journal Articles

Here's an excerpt :

Each faculty member grants to KU permission to make scholarly articles to which he or she made substantial intellectual contributions publicly available in the KU open access institutional repository, and to exercise the copyright in those articles. In legal terms, the permission granted by each faculty member is a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. This license in no way interferes with the rights of the KU faculty author as the copyright holder of the work. The policy will apply to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while a faculty member of KU. Faculty will be afforded an opt out opportunity. Faculty governance in consultation with the Provost's office will develop the details of the policy which will be submitted for approval by the Faculty Senate.

In "More on the U. Kansas OA Policy,"Gavin Bakerr comments:

A Web version of the text of the University of Kansas' new OA policy confirms what I'd suspected in my last post: that the policy as passed doesn't contain an OA mandate. It commits the university to OA, gives the university permission to provide OA to its faculty's research via the IR, and establishes a task force to work out the details—including the details of how the manuscripts will get into the IR.

1. Stuart Shieber on “University Open-Access Policies as Mandates”
2. University of Kansas Becomes First U.S. Public University to Pass University-Wide Open Access Policy
3. Harvard Graduate School of Education Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy
4. University of Oregon Department of Romance Languages Adopts Open Access Mandate
5. University of Calgary Academic Council of Library and Cultural Resources Adopts Open Access Mandate