Open Access – Page 102

University of Kansas Adopts Revised Open Access Policy

The University of Kansas has adopted a revised open access policy.

Here's the policy:

The faculty of the University of Kansas (KU) is committed to sharing the intellectual fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible and lowering barriers to its access. In recognition of that commitment and responsibility, the KU faculty is determined to take advantage of new technologies to increase access to its work by the citizens of Kansas and scholars, educators, and policymakers worldwide. In support of greater openness in scholarly endeavors, the KU faculty agrees to the following:

Each faculty member grants to KU permission to make scholarly peer-reviewed journal 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 irrevocably interferes with the rights of the KU faculty author as the copyright holder of the work.

The policy will apply to all scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles authored or co-authored while a faculty member of KU. To assist in the open distribution of the articles, faculty members will provide bibliographic information and an electronic copy of each article within 30 days of publication to the Provost’s Designate. The license granted to KU regarding an article will be waived by the Provost's Designate at the sole discretion of the faculty member upon written/electronic notification. The Provost's office will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its application, and recommending changes as necessary. This policy will be reviewed by Faculty Governance, in concert with the Provost's office, every three years, and a report presented to Faculty Governance. A broadly representative Open Access Advisory Board made up of faculty, representatives from faculty governance, and the Provost’s office will provide additional guidance and oversight in policy implementation.

Read more about it at KU Open Access Policy, "KU Pushes to Increase Public Access to Published Research," and "Open Access Policy Announcement" [original policy].

Harvard Business School Adopts Open Access Policy

The Harvard Business School has adopted an open access policy.

Here's the policy:

The Faculty of the Harvard Business School is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available articles that he or she has prepared for journal peer review and to exercise the copyright in those articles. More specifically, each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of these articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. The policy will apply to all such articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy.

Since the policy will apply only to articles prepared for peer review, it thus does not apply to Harvard Business School Cases and Notes, or to articles written for the Harvard Business Review or other publications that are not peer-reviewed. The Dean or the Dean's designate will waive application of the license for a particular article upon express direction by a Faculty member.

Each Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of the author's final version of each article to the Division of Research and Faculty Development (DRFD) no later than the date of its publication. DRFD will submit the article to the Harvard University open access repository; the Provost's Office may make it available to the public.

The Office of the Dean will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty from time to time. Effects of the policy will be continuously monitored, and after three years it will be reviewed and a report presented to the Faculty.

Read more about it at "Harvard Business School Approves Open-Access Policy."

Health Research Board Ireland and Telethon Italy Adopt Mandatory Open Access Policies

Two funding agencies, Health Research Board Ireland and Telethon Italy, have adopted open access mandates that require publications resulting from their funded research to be deposited in UK PubMed Central.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Today, this aim takes a step closer as four European research-funding organisations—the Health Research Board Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland, Telethon Italy and the Austrian Science Fund—have agreed to participate in UKPMC. The funders will mandate that all biomedical research outputs that arise from their funding are made freely available—typically within six months of publication—from the UKPMC repository.

(The Austrian Science Fund and Science Foundation Ireland had prior open access mandates.)

University of Virginia Adopts Voluntary Open Access Policy

The University of Virginia has adopted a voluntary open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from "Faculty Senate Approves Open Access, Authors' Rights Resolution":

The Open Access policy was a revision of a resolution on scholarly publications that was brought to the Faculty Senate last November, Task Force Chair Brian Pusser said. Originally, the resolution said participation would be mandatory by default but that faculty members could sign a waiver to opt out of it. The policy then was revised so that faculty members simply could decide if they wanted to contribute to the repository, Pusser said.

For background see: Faculty Senate Task Force on Scholarly Publications and Authors' Rights and "U.Va. Faculty Senate Weighs Access to Scholarly Articles."

Modelling Scholarly Communication Options: Costs and Benefits for Universities

JISC has released Modelling Scholarly Communication Options: Costs and Benefits for Universities.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement (announcement includes podcast):

The key findings from the report show

The annual savings in research and library costs of a university repository model combined with subscription publishing could range from £100,000 to £1,320,000

Moving from Open Access journals and subscription-funding to per-article Open Access journal funding has the potential to achieve savings for universities between £620,000 per year and £1,700,000 per year if the article-processing charge is set at £500 or less

Savings from a change away from subscription-funding to per-article Open Access journal funding were estimated to be between £170,000 and £1,365,000 per year for three out of the four universities studied when the article-processing charge is £1000 per article or less

For the remaining university in the study a move from subscription-funding to the per-article Open Access journal funding saw the university having to pay £1.86m more in this scenario

"A Survey of the Scholarly Journals Using Open Journal Systems"

Brian D. Edgar and John Willinsky have self-archived "A Survey of the Scholarly Journals Using Open Journal Systems" on the Public Knowledge Project website.

Here's an excerpt:

A survey of 998 scholarly journals that use Open Journal Systems (OJS), an open source journal software platform, captures the characteristics of an emerging class of scholar-publisher open access journals (with some representation from more traditional scholarly society and print-based titles). The journals in the sample follow traditional norms for peer-reviewing, acceptance rates, and disciplinary focus, but are distinguished by the number that offer open access to their content, the growth rates in new titles, the participation rates from developing countries, and the extremely low operating budgets. The survey also documents the limited degree to which open source software can alter a field of communication, as OJS appears to have created a third path, dedicated to maximizing access to research and scholarship, as an alternative to traditional scholarly society and commercial publishing routes.

"Self-Selected or Mandated, Open Access Increases Citation Impact for Higher Quality Research"

Yassine Gargouri, Chawki Hajjem, Vincent Lariviere, Yves Gingras, Tim Brody, Les Carr, Stevan Harnad have self-archived "Self-Selected or Mandated, Open Access Increases Citation Impact for Higher Quality Research" in the ECS EPrints Repository

Here's an excerpt:

Articles whose authors make them Open Access (OA) by self-archiving them online are cited significantly more than articles accessible only to subscribers. Some have suggested that this "OA Advantage" may not be causal but just a self-selection bias, because authors preferentially make higher-quality articles OA. To test this we compared self-selective self-archiving with mandatory self-archiving for a sample of 27,197 articles published 2002-2006 in 1,984 journals. The OA Advantage proved just as high for both. Logistic regression showed that the advantage is independent of other correlates of citations (article age; journal impact factor; number of co-authors, references or pages; field; article type; country or institution) and greatest for the most highly cited articles. The OA Advantage is real, independent and causal, but skewed. Its size is indeed correlated with quality, just as citations themselves are (the top 20% of articles receive about 80% of all citations). The advantage is greater for the more citeable articles, not because of a quality bias from authors self-selecting what to make OA, but because of a quality advantage, from users self-selecting what to use and cite, freed by OA from the constraints of selective accessibility to subscribers only. [See accompanying RTF file for responses to feedback. Four PDF files provide Supplementary Analysis.]

"Recognizing Opportunities: Conversational Openings to Promote Positive Scholarly Communication Change"

Adrian K. Ho and Daniel R. Lee have published "Recognizing Opportunities: Conversational Openings to Promote Positive Scholarly Communication Change" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

Librarians in the midst of conversations with members of the campus community are often hesitant to bring up scholarly communication issues. Numerous online resources have been created in the past few years to help campuses address these issues, but some of us, whether or not we are familiar with these resources and are comfortable with the relevant concepts, aren't quite ready to talk about the resources and translate the concepts into practices. This article aims to provide scenarios of how such resources can come in handy during day-to-day interaction with faculty and students to help our campuses manage change and achieve an information sharing environment that benefits everyone.

The Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing

Co-Action Publishing and Lund University Libraries have released The Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The online guide is directed to small independent teams and provides practical information on planning, setting up, launching, publishing and managing an open access scholarly journal. Users can take advantage of additional resources in the form of links to related information, samples of applied practices and downloadable tools that can be adapted. The guide seeks to be interactive, allowing users to share their own best practices, tips and suggestions through a comment field. Although the guide contains some information that is specific to the Nordic region, most of its content can be applied internationally.

Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research Establishes €2.5 Million Open Access Budget

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has established a €2.5 million open access budget. The NWO is "the largest financer of scientific innovation in the Netherlands and operates as an intermediary between researchers, (international) science centres and society."

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

Open Access—meaning free access to scientific and scholarly information—is winning ground, and more and more information is becoming freely accessible to the public. The parties concerned—including publishers—are increasingly accepting Open Access as the norm. At the Open Access seminar organised by SURF in Amsterdam, Prof. Jos Engelen, chairman of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), announced that his organisation would be providing a special Open Access budget of EUR 2.5m.

In "Nederland 'Open Access-Land'" (in Dutch), it is stated that the NWO will also establish a €2.5 million contingency fund and that researchers will apply for €5,000 project grants for open access publications.

The above press release also states that:

The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has reached agreement with Springer that in 2010 all articles by Dutch researchers in Springer journals will be made available Open Access, subject to the author agreeing.

"Building a Sustainable Framework for Open Access to Research Data through Information and Communication Technologies"

Gideon Emcee Christian has self-archived "Building a Sustainable Framework for Open Access to Research Data through Information and Communication Technologies" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The growth in information and communication technology (ICT) has brought about increased pace in information and knowledge exchange. This increased pace is being fueled in large part by the open exchange of information. The pressure for open access to research data is gaining momentum in virtually every field of human endeavour. Data is the life blood of science and quite unsurprisingly data repositories are rapidly becoming an essential component of the infrastructure of the global science system. Improved access to data will transform the way research is conducted. It will create new opportunities and avenues for improved efficiency in dealing with social, economic and scientific challenges facing humanity.

Despite the admitted benefits of open access to research data, the concept is still weighed down by series of factors both legal and ethical which must be resolved in other to derive the maximum benefits arising from open access to data. The resolution of these issues will require the development of a sustainable framework to facilitate access to and use of research data by researchers, academics institutions, private individuals and other users. This research paper examines the legal and ethical issues affecting open access to research data. The research also examined various frameworks for enhancing open access to research data. Such frameworks include the open data contract, open content licenses as well as open data commons.

Wake Forest University Library Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy

The library faculty of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University have unanimously adopted an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

Each faculty member grants Wake Forest University the right to archive and make publicly available the full text of the author’s final version of scholarly works via the University’s open access institutional repository. This provides the University the nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to preserve and redistribute the work. When publisher agreements do not automatically grant permission to archive the author’s final version, the faculty commit to negotiating for such rights. Faculty members will submit an electronic version of the author’s final version in an appropriate format as soon as possible, respecting some publishers’ requests for embargo.

Furthermore, the faculty endeavor to publish their scholarship in open access venues when possible, or alternately to seek the right to archive the final published version in lieu of the author's final version.

This policy will apply to all scholarship created while a member of the WFU faculty, excluding works previously accepted for publication and works for which authors entered into incompatible licensing or assignment agreements prior to the adoption of this policy, and excepting books and book chapters as necessary. The Dean of the Library will waive the application of the policy for future scholarship upon written notification from the author, who informs the Dean of the reason.

Read more about it at "ZSR Library Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy."

PEER Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-à-vis Journals and Repositories; Baseline Report

The Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER) project has released PEER Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-à-vis Journals and Repositories; Baseline Report.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The PEER Behavioural Research Team from Loughborough University (Department of Information Science & LISU) has completed its behavioural baseline report, which is based on an electronic survey of authors (and authors as users) with more than 3000 European researchers and a series of focus groups covering the Medical sciences; Social sciences, humanities & arts; Life sciences; and Physical sciences & mathematics. The objectives of the Behavioural Research within PEER are to:

Track trends and explain patterns of author and user behaviour in the context of so called Green Open Access.

Understand the role repositories play for authors in the context of journal publishing.

Understand the role repositories play for users in context of accessing journal articles.

The baseline report outlines findings from the first phase of the research and identifies the key themes to emerge. It also identifies priorities for further analysis and future work. Some interesting points to emerge from the first phase of research that may be of interest to a number of stakeholders in the scholarly communication system include:

An individual's attitude towards open access repositories may change dependant on whether they are an author or a reader; readers being interested in the quality of the articles but authors also focused on the reputation of the repository itself

Reaching the target audience is the overwhelming motivation for scholars to disseminate their research results and this strongly influences their choice of journal and/or repository

Researchers in certain disciplines may lack confidence in making preprints available, and to some extent this is not only a matter of confidence in the quality of a text but also due to differences in work organisation across research cultures (e.g. strong internal peer review of manuscripts versus reliance on journals for peer review). Other factors are likely to include career stage and centrality of research to the parent discipline

Value-added services, such as download statistics and alert services, would contribute to the perceived usefulness of repositories and could help them gain popularity in what is an increasingly competitive information landscape

Readers often need to go through a variety of processes to access all the articles that they require and widespread open access may reduce the need for this time consuming practice.

Selected Comments to the White House OSTP Public Access Policy Forum

Below are selected comments submitted to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Public Access Policy Forum. The Forum is now closed.

David H. Carlson Elected SPARC Steering Committee Chair

David H. Carlson, Dean of Library Affairs at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, has been elected Chair of the SPARC Steering Committee. Carlson has been a committee member since 2008.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Carlson brings to the Chair position a rich and deep perspective informed by working with a variety of libraries and institutions in his career, including a teaching college, large research-intensive university, and a library consortium. He has served extensively with the board of directors at the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), and currently serves on the boards of directors for the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) and BioOne.

Carlson has been an active participant in industry-level scholarly communication activities, especially those related to library-vendor relations. He led the library community in successfully securing a reversal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) decision to stop supplying new Science content to JSTOR. He has spearheaded Open Access activities at SIUC, and was responsible for launching the campus's open-access repository. Carlson has also been active supporter of national public access policies and has been a vocal advocate of the NIH Public Access Policy as well as the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA).

"David Carlson is a committed advocate who sees things through to their conclusion," said Heather Joseph, SPARC's Executive Director. "His experience with institutions of all types, and his commitment to deepening the impact of research through expanding access will help SPARC make important new strides in the coming years. The committee and I look forward to having David's leadership to help us address the challenges and opportunities before us."

"The matters facing SPARC are vital to not just libraries but the academy," said Carlson. "Indeed, as technology provides greater access to tools and platforms that permit creative contributions, the issues are becoming increasingly important to society as a whole. It is a critical time to show the detrimental effects of restrictive laws and regulations, and to advance requirements for public access to research sponsored by government agencies." He added, "I look forward to working as Chair of SPARC to pursue key avenues toward change at this crucial juncture."

SPARC's voting membership, which includes representatives from over 150 academic libraries in the U.S. and Canada, also elected the following individuals to serve on the SPARC Steering Committee for three-year terms beginning January 1:

Maggie Farrell, University of Wyoming (non-ARL director)

Rick Luce, Emory University (ARL director)

Lorraine Harricombe, University of Kansas (ARL director)

Steering Committee members whose terms concluded in December include outgoing Chair (2005 through 2009) Ray English (Oberlin College), Larry Alford (Temple University), Sherrie Bergman (Bowdoin College), Diane Graves (Trinity University), and Randy Olsen (Brigham Young University).

The full SPARC Steering Committee represents ARL and non-ARL libraries in the U.S. and Canada as well as SPARC Europe, SPARC Japan, CARL, and AASHL. The full list is available at http://www.arl.org/sparc/about.

Selected Comments of Publishers to the White House OSTP Consultation on Open Access

Below are selected comments of association and commercial publishers to the White House OSTP public consultation on Public Access Policy.

Last Call: Tell the White House You Support Open Access by Thursday

The deadline for submitting comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's public consultation on public access policy is January 21st.

If you do not want to submit detailed comments, you might consider indicating your support for the comments of one of the below organizations. The easiest way to do so is simply to send an e-mail message to publicaccess@ostp.gov indicating that you support their comments.

If you wish to make detailed comments, either send them to the e-mail address above answering the 9 questions in the Federal Register or make comments at the appropriate OSTP post:

To post comments on the OSTP Blog, you must first register and login.

STM Reacts to Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report

STM, an international association of around 100 publishers, has issued a press release regarding the recent Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

STM takes issue, however, with some of the other recommendations and goals expressed in the Report. Firstly, while STM supports US agencies in the development of public access policies to the results of research funded by those agencies, we do not agree that the scholarly articles arising from publisher investment and value add fall under this category. Government research grants currently cover the cost of the research only. Government research grants do not cover the costs of publication.

Secondly, while welcoming the consultation and collaboration that has occurred with our industry, STM believes the goal of US agencies in establishing a "global publishing system" is redundant and wasteful and ignores the essentially international nature of STM publishing, which has, without any government assistance anywhere in the world, enabled more access to more people than at any time in history.

Thirdly, if there is to be no compensation for the use of journal mediated content, STM supports the need for embargo periods. There is, however, no evidence whatsoever to support the recommendation that embargo periods of 0 to 12 months could be adopted for "many sciences" without problem. STM is leading a three year experiment part-funded by the European Commission (the PEER Project) to find out the effects of various embargo periods on journals. We strongly encourage such an evidence-based policy investigation in the US as well.

Finally, while STM supports the recommendation that the final published article should be given primacy (the so called VoR or Version of Record) over the proliferation of other imperfect earlier versions, it is through this final version —and the creation and maintenance of their authoritative journals—that STM publishers provide significant added value; to make final published articles (VoRs) free immediately upon publication must involve some mechanism of financial compensation.

ALA and ACRL Support Open Access in Comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

ALA and ACRL have submitted comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) calling for greater open access to federally funded research.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The ALA and ACRL have long believed that ensuring public access to the fruits of federally funded research is a logical, feasible, and widely beneficial goal. They provided information and evidence as the Executive Branch considers expanding public access policies, like that implemented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to other federal agencies. Specifically, the ALA and ACRL recommend: which agencies should be covered, that policies should be mandatory, that earlier access is better, version and format recommendations, how to keep implementation costs reasonable, and the importance of supporting emerging scholarly practice.

While greater access to publicly funded research has long been a high priority issue for academic libraries, ACRL President Lori Goetsch, Dean of Libraries at Kansas State University, emphasized that now is the time for public and school librarians to tell their stories.

"What would it mean for members of your community to have better access to scholarly, scientific, and technical articles—paid with their own tax dollars through grants from agencies like NASA or the EPA?" Goetsch said. "How would it help small business owners starting up green technology companies? How would it help enhance teaching and learning in high schools?"

In the past, the ALA and ACRL have supported NIH Public Access Policy and endorsed "The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009" (S. 1373) noting the latter, "reflects ALA policy regarding access to Federal government information by providing for the long-term preservation of, and no-fee public access to, government-sponsored, tax-payer funded published research findings."

The ALA and ACRL encourage all members to consider making comments, no later than January 21, to OSTP as individuals or libraries. More information is available on the OSTP Public Access Policy blog at http://blog.ostp.gov/category/public-access-policy. Comments can also be posted on OSTP’s blog. Comments e-mailed to publicaccess@ostp.gov are also accepted, but may be posted to the blog by the moderator. General comments, addressing any part of the Request for Information, may be submitted. See the full notice Federal Register notice at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-30725.htm for details.

Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable has released the Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

An expert panel of librarians, library scientists, publishers, and university academic leaders today called on federal agencies that fund research to develop and implement policies that ensure free public access to the results of the research they fund "as soon as possible after those results have been published in a peer-reviewed journal."

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable was convened last summer by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Policymakers asked the group to examine the current state of scholarly publishing and seek consensus recommendations for expanding public access to scholarly journal articles.

The various communities represented in the Roundtable have been working to develop recommendations that would improve public access without curtailing the ability of the scientific publishing industry to publish peer- reviewed scientific articles.

The Roundtable’s recommendations, endorsed in full by the overwhelming majority of the panel (12 out of 14 members), "seek to balance the need for and potential of increased access to scholarly articles with the need to preserve the essential functions of the scholarly publishing enterprise," according to the report. . . .

The Roundtable identified a set of principles viewed as essential to a robust scholarly publishing system, including the need to preserve peer review, the necessity of adaptable publishing business models, the benefits of broader public access, the importance of archiving, and the interoperability of online content.

In addition, the group affirmed the high value of the "version of record" for published articles and of all stakeholders' contributions to sustaining the best possible system of scholarly publishing during a time of tremendous change and innovation.

To implement its core recommendation for public access, the Roundtable recommended the following:

Agencies should work in full and open consultation with all stakeholders, as well as with OSTP, to develop their public access policies. Agencies should establish specific embargo periods between publication and public access.

Policies should be guided by the need to foster interoperability.

Every effort should be made to have the Version of Record as the version to which free access is provided.

Government agencies should extend the reach of their public access policies through voluntary collaborations with non-governmental stakeholders.

Policies should foster innovation in the research and educational use of scholarly publications.

Government public access policies should address the need to resolve the challenges of long-term digital preservation.

OSTP should establish a public access advisory committee to facilitate communication among government and nongovernment stakeholders.

White House OSTP Asks for Additional Comments on Open Access until Jan. 21st

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has requested additional comments about its public consultation on public access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Many of you expressed a desire for more time to engage in the Public Access Policy Forum post-holidays. We heard you! While Phase III ended on January 7th, we have launched a two-week bonus period for all of you who signed off for the holidays. Therefore, all three phases of the Forum will remain open through January 21st.

In hopes that you will continue to build and respond to the thoughtful comments of your peers, we ask you to visit the Public Access Policy Forum portion of our blog to see all relevant posts and submit your comments in the appropriate forum:

Phase I – Implementation

Phase II – Features and Technology

Phase III – Management

In addition, be sure to check out the many comments and proposals submitted to our publicaccess@ostp.gov inbox, to which you are also welcome to submit comments or documents. Some comments are just text; some have links to documents that have been submitted.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Consultation on Open Access

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) public consultation on public access policy completed phase three on January 7, 2010.

Here's an excerpt from "Phase III Wrap-Up":

We sincerely thank every one of you for taking the time to provide such valuable commentary on this topic. As previously mentioned, due to the busy holiday season we will be re-opening the forum for a two-week bonus session beginning immediately. In this final session we will be soliciting comments on all the topics discussed in the three previous phases, and may periodically ask during the course of these two weeks that participants focus on a few key issues that we feel warrant additional attention. . . .

Once again thank you to all who participated; your comments and suggestions are genuinely appreciated. Now, for those of you who have been caught up with the holidays or have simply procrastinated, please take some time to share your thoughts as we extend this public forum through January 21th.

Here are the main discussion pages for the three phases:

Alliance for Taxpayer Access Call to Action about White House Open Access RFI

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a call to action about the OSTP open access RFI.

Here's the press release:

CALL TO ACTION: Let the White House know you support public access to public funded research

Last week, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a Request for Information (RFI) inviting input on "enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from research funded by federal science and technology agencies." SPARC is pleased that the Administration, as part of its Transparency and Open Government initiative, is looking at public access as an opportunity to stimulate scientific and technological innovation and competitiveness.

All are urged to respond to this pivotal opportunity, as individuals and on behalf of institutions and organizations, NO LATER than January 7, 2010. Your input will be critical in helping the administration to form a deep and balanced view of stakeholders’ interest in ensuring public access to publicly funded research.

This RFI will be active for only 30 days, from December 10, 2009 to January 7, 2010. Respondents are invited to comment online through the Public Access Policy blog at http://blog.ostp.gov/category/public-access-policy, where the discussion will center on a single theme for each of three ten-day periods.

December 10 – 20: Implementation

December 21 – 31: Features and technology

January 1 – 7: Management

Email comments will also be accepted, but will still be posted to the blog by the moderator. General comments may also be submitted. See the full Federal Register notice at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-29322.htm for details.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss, please contact SPARC, representing the Alliance for Taxpayer Access.

Heather Joseph, Executive Director
heather [at] arl [dot] org

Jennifer McLennan, Director of Communications
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org

We'll look forward to talking with you, and to working with you on this tremendous opportunity for higher education and American public.

Note: To post comments on the OSTP blog, you must register and login. There are also registration and login links on the sidebar of the Archive for the Public Access Policy OSTP blog category at the bottom right and on the OSTP blog home page in the same location. The current discussion post is "Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Implementation." As noted in the Federal Register announcement, comments can also be e-mailed to publicaccess@ostp.gov.

12/22/09 Update: The current discussion post is "Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Features and Technology." Comments are entered at this post.

Cornell Gives about 80,000 Digitized Public Domain Books to Internet Archive

The Cornell University Library has given about 80,000 digitized public domain books to the Internet Archive.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In an effort to make its materials globally accessible, Cornell University Library is sharing tens of thousands of digitized books with the Internet Archive.

"We have been carefully preserving and storing materials for years, and now we're diversifying the channels for them to be studied and used," said Oya Reiger, associate university librarian for information technologies. "We have the ability to take books to the places where readers are."

The new collaboration repurposes nearly 80,000 books that the Library has already digitized in-house or through its partnership with Microsoft and Kirtas Technologies. All the books are in the public domain, printed before 1923 mainly in the United States. They cover a host of subject areas, including American history, English literature, astronomy, food and wine, general engineering, the history of science, home economics, hospitality and travel, labor relations, Native American materials, ornithology, veterinary medicine and women's studies. . . .

"Expanding access to knowledge is one of the Library's core principles, and we are excited to participate in the open-access vision of the Internet Archive," said Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian.

The collaboration with Internet Archive is another step in Cornell University Library's cutting-edge participation in mass digitization initiatives. Earlier this year, the Library announced an expanded print-on-demand partnership with Amazon.com that allows readers to pay for reprinting of books on an individual basis.

"The Internet Archive is proud to process and host the books from Cornell — these collections are priceless," said Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive. "We are happy that Microsoft put no restrictions on the scanned public domain books and Cornell is encouraging maximum readership and research use."

Performing a simple search for one of Cornell University Library's digitized books now brings up both a copy on Amazon and a free online copy on the Internet Archive.

Presentations from the Berlin 7 Open Access Conference

Presentations from the Berlin 7 Open Access Conference are now available.