Category: Open Access

Research Councils UK Adopts New Open Access Policy

The Research Councils UK has adopted a new open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Research Councils UK (RCUK) has today, 16th July 2012, unveiled its new Open Access policy. Informed by the work of the National Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, chaired by Professor Dame Janet Finch, the policy at once harmonises and makes significant changes to existing Research Councils' Open Access policies. . . .

The new policy, which will apply to all qualifying publications being submitted for publication from 1 April 2013, states that peer reviewed research papers which result from research that is wholly or partially funded by the Research Councils:

  • must be published in journals which are compliant with Research Council policy on Open Access, and;
  • must include details of the funding that supported the research, and a statement on how the underlying research materials such as data, samples or models can be accessed.

Criteria which journals must fulfill to be compliant with the Research Councils' Open Access policy are detailed within the policy, but include offering a 'pay to publish'; option or allowing deposit in a subject or institutional repository after a mandated maximum embargo period. In addition, the policy mandates use of 'CC-BY', the Creative Commons 'Attribution' license, when an APC is levied. The CC_BY licence allows others to modify, build upon and/or distribute the licensed work (including for commercial purposes) as long as the original author is credited.

The Research Councils will provide block grants to eligible UK Higher Education Institutions, approved independent research organisations and Research Council Institutes to support payment of the Article Processing Charges (APCs) associated with 'pay-to-publish'. In parallel, eligible organisations will be expected to set-up and manage their own publication funds. The Research Councils will work with eligible organisations to discuss the detail of the new approach to funding APCs and to ensure that appropriate and auditable mechanisms are put in place to manage the funds.

Along with HEFCE and other relevant Funding Bodies, we shall monitor these policies actively, both to review their effects and to ensure that our joint objectives on Open Access are being met.

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

"Multi-Stage Open Peer Review: Scientific Evaluation Integrating the Strengths of Traditional Peer Review with the Virtues of Transparency and Self-Regulation"

Ulrich Pöschl has published "Multi-Stage Open Peer Review: Scientific Evaluation Integrating the Strengths of Traditional Peer Review with the Virtues of Transparency and Self-Regulation" in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience.

Here's an excerpt:

The traditional forms of scientific publishing and peer review do not live up to all demands of efficient communication and quality assurance in today's highly diverse and rapidly evolving world of science. They need to be advanced and complemented by interactive and transparent forms of review, publication, and discussion that are open to the scientific community and to the public. The advantages of open access, public peer review, and interactive discussion can be efficiently and flexibly combined with the strengths of traditional scientific peer review.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Scholarly Communication Program Case Study: "Relational Communications: Developing Key Connections"

Micah Vandegrift and Gloria Colvin have published "Relational Communications: Developing Key Connections" in the latest issue of College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

Two years ago use of the terms scholarly communication and open access on the Florida State University (FSU) campus was limited primarily to library administrators and a few library and teaching faculty. But, in a relatively short time, we have dramatically increased awareness of these topics on our campus and accomplished many of our goals. Our focus has been on promoting authors' rights, the option to archive publications in open access repositories, and the evolution of scholarly publication in a digital environment, rather than a focus on the serials crisis facing libraries. Looking back over these past two years, the relationships that we developed along the way have been foundational to our success. Here, we discuss development of the FSU program and key steps we took, which we hope are instructive to others in developing a scholarly communication program.

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

"Open Metrics for Open Repositories"

Brian Kelly, Nick Sheppard, Jenny Delasalle, Mark Dewey, Owen Stephens, Gareth J Johnson, and Stephanie Taylor have self-archived "Open Metrics for Open Repositories" in University of Bath Research.

Here's an excerpt:

Increasingly there is a need for quantitative evidence in order to help demonstrate the value of online services. Such evidence can also help to detect emerging patterns of usage and identify associated operational best practice. This paper seeks to initiate a discussion on approaches to metrics for institutional repositories by providing a high-level overview of the benefits of metrics for a variety of stakeholders. The paper outlines the potential benefits which can be gained from providing richer statistics related to the use of institutional repositories and also reviews related work in this area. The authors describe a JISC-funded project which harvested a large number of repositories in order to identify patterns of use of metadata attributes and summarise the key findings. The paper provides a case study which reviews plans to provide a richer set of statistics within one institutional repository as well as requirements from the researcher community. An example of how third-party aggregation services may provide metrics on behalf of the repository community is given. The authors conclude with a call for repository managers, developers and policy makers to be pro-active in providing open access to metrics for open repositories.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

A Technical Review of Open Access Repository Registries: OpenDOAR and ROAR

JISC has released A Technical Review of Open Access Repository Registries: OpenDOAR and ROAR, which was written in 7/1/2011 and deposited on 7/5/2012.

Here's an excerpt:

This document provides a technical review of the capabilities, benefits and drawbacks of two leading Open Access Repository Registries (OARRs)—OpenDOAR and ROAR. Both systems are considered qualitatively and quantitatively with a view to identifying those facets which provide value for a repository registry service.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Going for Gold? The Costs and Benefits of Gold Open Access for UK Research Institutions: Further Economic Modelling

JISC has released Going for Gold? The Costs and Benefits of Gold Open Access for UK Research Institutions: Further Economic Modelling.

Here's an excerpt:

Based on this analysis, the main findings are:

  • so long as research funders commit to paying publication costs for the research they fund, and
  • publication charges fall to the reprint author's home institution,
  • all research-intensive universities would see the greatest savings, and universities would see savings from (worldwide) Gold OA when article-processing charges are at the current averages,
  • in a transition period, providing Open Access through the Green route offers the greatest economic benefits to individual universities, unless additional funds are made available to cover Gold OA costs

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

Wellcome Trust Enforces Its Open Access Policy More Vigorously

The Wellcome Trust is enforcing its open access policy with three new rules.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Since 2006, its open access policy has required that all research papers funded in whole or in part by the Wellcome Trust be made available via the UK PubMed Central repository as soon as possible, and in any event within six months of the date of publication. At present, only 55 per cent of research papers acknowledging Wellcome Trust funding comply with its open access policy. . . .

Sir Mark has written to university vice-chancellors and the directors of the Trust's major overseas programmes to outline the steps that the Trust will be taking:

  • When Trust-funded researchers prepare final grant reports, it will require the principal investigator's institution to provide assurance that all papers associated with the grant comply with the Trust's policy. If they are unable to do this, the final payment on the grant will be withheld.
  • Non-compliant publications will be discounted as part of a researcher's track record in any renewal of an existing grant or new grant application.
  • Trust-funded researchers will be required to ensure that all publications associated with their Wellcome-funded research are compliant with the Trust's policy before any funding renewals or new grant awards will be activated.

All three steps will apply to research articles published from 1 October 2009 onwards.

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

League of European Research Universities Releases The LERU Roadmap towards Open Access

The League of European Research Universities has released The LERU Roadmap towards Open Access.

Here's an excerpt:

  • The idea of Open Access is not new; the first major international statement on Open Access was set out in the Declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002.4 However, 'the pathway' to Open Access is not a smooth one. Many parties are involved and there are many competing interests. There are costs and there are advocates, agnostics and critics. There are gains and impacts which need to be carefully assessed.
  • This Roadmap traverses some of this landscape and aims to assist LERU members who wish to put in place structures, policies and practices to facilitate Open Access. Whilst the Roadmap is primarily intended for LERU members, other European universities may find it useful.

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

Five Research Councils in Denmark Adopt Open Access Policy

Five research councils in Denmark (the Danish Council for Technology and Innovation, the Danish Council for Independent Research, the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation, the The Danish National Research Foundation, and the Danish Council for Strategic Research) have adopted an open access policy.

Peter Suber has provided a Google translation of the policy.

Read more about it at "Researchers' Results to Be Free for All."

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

Science as an Open Enterprise

The Royal Society has released Science as an Open Enterprise.

Here's an excerpt:

This report analyses the impact of new and emerging technologies that are transforming the conduct and communication of research. The recommendations are designed to improve the conduct of science, respond to changing public expectations and political culture and enable researchers to maximise the impact of their research. They are designed to ensure that reproducibility and self-correction are maintained in an era of massive data volumes. They aim to stimulate the communication and collaboration where these are needed to maximise the value of data-intensive approaches to science. Action is needed to maximise the exploitation of science in business and in public policy. But not all data are of equal interest and importance. Some are rightly confidential for commercial, privacy, safety or security reasons. There are both opportunities and financial costs in the full presentation of data and metadata. The recommendations set out key principles. The main text explores how to judge their application and where accountability should lie.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"Open Access Scientific Publishing and the Developing World"

Jorge L. Contreras has self-archived "Open Access Scientific Publishing and the Developing World" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Responding to rapid and steep increases in the cost of scientific journals, a growing number of scholars and librarians have advocated "open access" (OA) to the scientific literature. OA publishing models are having a significant impact on the dissemination of scientific information. Despite the success of these initiatives, their impact on researchers in the developing world is uncertain. This article analyses major OA approaches adopted in the industrialized world (so-called Green OA, Gold OA, and OA mandates, as well as non-OA information philanthropy) as they relate to the consumption and production of research in the developing world. The article concludes that while the consumption of scientific literature by developing world researchers is likely to be significantly enhanced through such programs, promoting the production of research in the developing world requires additional measures. These could include the introduction of better South-focused journal indexing systems that identify high-quality journals published in the developing world, coupled with the adjustment of academic norms to reward publication in such journals. Financial models must also be developed to decrease the reliance by institutions in the developing world on information philanthropy and to level the playing field between OA journals in industrialized and developing countries.

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

Green Open Access: PEER: Final Report

The PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) project has released the PEER: Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research), supported by the EC eContentplus programme2, has been investigating the potential effects of the large-scale, systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts (so called Green Open Access or stage-two research output) on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research. The project ran from 1 September 2008–31 May 2012. . . .

Collectively, the project has provided insights and evidence indicating:

  • How large-scale archiving may affect journals
  • Whether it increases access
  • How it will affect the broader ecology of European research
  • Which factors influence the readiness to deposit in institutional and disciplinary repositories
  • What the cost drivers are for publishers and repositories

The project also released PEER Usage Study—Descriptive Statistics for the Period March to August 2011 and PEER Usage Study—Randomised Controlled Trial Results.

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

"Finch Group" Open Access Report: Accessibility, Sustainability, Excellence: How to Expand Access to Research Publications

The Research Information Network has released Accessibility, Sustainability, Excellence: How to Expand Access to Research Publications. Report of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings. For background on the report, see "Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings."

Here's an excerpt:

This report tackles the important question of how to achieve better, faster access to research publications for anyone who wants to read or use them. It has been produced by an independent working group made up of representatives of universities, research funders, learned societies, publishers, and libraries. The group's remit has been to examine how to expand access to the peer-reviewed publications that arise from research undertaken both in the UK and in the rest of the world; and to propose a programme of action to that end.

We have concentrated on journals which publish research results and findings. Virtually all are now published online, and they increasingly include sophisticated navigation, linking and interactive services. Making them freely accessible at the point of use, with minimal if any limitations on how they can be used, offers the potential

Our aim has been to identify key goals and guiding principles in a period of transition towards wider access. We have sought ways both to accelerate that transition and also to sustain what is valuable in a complex ecology with many different agents and stakeholders.

In "Finch Group report on OA in the UK," Peter Suber said of the report:

Bottom line: On the plus side, the Finch group wants a massive shift to OA. It prefers immediate to embargoed OA, and it prefers libre to gratis OA. Some of its reasons for preferring gold to green OA are based on real virtues of gold. On the minus side, most of its reasons for preferring gold to green OA are based on a distorted and jaundiced view of green. The group implies that green cannot be libre (8.9, 8.28), which is false. It implies that green cannot be peer reviewed (8.26) which is false. It implies that green cannot be immediate or must be embargoed (8.28), which is false. It virtually disregards the role of green OA in disseminating peer-reviewed research and values green primarily for providing access to data, and access to grey literature, and preservation. One can see the effect of publisher lobbying on the group's misinformed disparagement of green OA and the group's high priority to save incumbent publishers from risk.

Read more about it at "U.K. Panel Backs Open Access for All Publicly Funded Research Papers."

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

"Green and Gold Open Access Percentages and Growth, by Discipline"

Yassine Gargouri, Vincent Lariviere, Yves Gingras, Les Carr, and Stevan Harnad have self-archived "Green and Gold Open Access Percentages and Growth, by Discipline" in ePrints Soton.

Here's an excerpt from:

Most refereed journal articles today are published in subscription journals, accessible only to subscribing institutions, hence losing considerable research impact. Making articles freely accessible online ("Open Access," OA) maximizes their impact. Articles can be made OA in two ways: by self-archiving them on the web ("Green OA") or by publishing them in OA journals ("Gold OA"). We compared the percent and growth rate of Green and Gold OA for 14 disciplines in two random samples of 1300 articles per discipline out of the 12,500 journals indexed by Thomson-Reuters-ISI using a robot that trawled the web for OA full-texts. We sampled in 2009 and 2011 for publication year ranges 1998-2006 and 2005-2010, respectively. Green OA (21.4%) exceeds Gold OA (2.4%) in proportion and growth rate in all but the biomedical disciplines, probably because it can be provided for all journals articles and does not require paying extra Gold OA publication fees. The spontaneous overall OA growth rate is still very slow (about 1% per year). If institutions make Green OA self-archiving mandatory, however, it triples percent Green OA as well as accelerating its growth rate.

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

Open Access Publishing: PeerJ Announced

PeerJ has issued a press release about its open access publishing services.

Here's an excerpt:

PeerJ Inc. (http://peerj.com), a new Open Access academic publishing company, formally announced itself today. Founded by seasoned academic publishing and technology professionals from PLoS ONE and Mendeley, PeerJ will publish a broad based, rapid, peer-reviewed journal ('PeerJ') and an innovative preprint server ('PeerJ PrePrints'). PeerJ will open for submissions in Summer 2012, and will publish its first articles in December 2012. . . .

PeerJ will publish all well reported, scientifically sound research in the Biological and Medical Sciences. The journal will operate a rigorous peer review process and will deliver the highest standards in everything it does. . . .

Unique among academic publishers, PeerJ provides authors with low cost lifetime memberships giving them the rights to publish their papers freely thereafter. Three membership plans exist—Basic, Enhanced and Investigator. All member plans confer lifetime rights, and the three tiers allow members to publish once, twice, or an unlimited number of times per year in PeerJ. Each author on a paper must be a member and the Basic membership plan is just $99.

Read more about it at "Scholarly Publishing 2012: Meet PeerJ."

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

"National Licenses and Open Access in Germany"

The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) has released "National Licenses and Open Access in Germany."

Here's an excerpt:

Over the last years, a number of collaborative negotiations have taken place at a national level in order to push forward on conditions for Open Access within journal license agreements. In 2010, the National Licensing working group of the "Digital Information" initiative in Germany agreed on common guidelines and carried out licensing negotiations for current journals and databases. Special attention was paid to pricing models, archiving and "moving wall" conditions, including a condition for Open Access. The background to and outcomes of these negotiations are described in this paper, with particular emphasis on newly agreed licenses in the Alliance of German Science Organisations framework ("Alliance licenses"). Further contracts are under development.

| 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 |

Utah State University Establishes Open Access Policy

Utah State University has adopted an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The new open access policy—officially known at USU as Policy 535—ensures that all employees at Utah State University retain the ability to share their publications with colleagues, students and the public upon their publication. The policy was first unanimously approved by USU's Faculty Senate in April, followed by approval by the President's Executive Committee with the endorsement of USU President Stan Albrecht.

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

All employees during their employment with the University grant to the University a nonexclusive license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of their scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for profit, and to authorize others to do the same. These articles will also be deposited in the University's Open Access Institutional Repository to ensure the widest possible dissemination. The nonexclusive license will be waived at the sole discretion of the author and will be administered on behalf of the Provost's Office by the Library.

Read more about it at "Open Access Policy Procedures."

| 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 |

Free a Book: Unglue.it Launches

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 Miami University Libraries Adopt Open Access Policy

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 |

First Issue of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication Published

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 |

Open Access Bibliography Tops 500,000 File Requests

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 |

Open Access: 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

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 |

"Scientific Utopia: I. Opening Scientific Communication"

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 |

"Abandoning the Orphans: An Open Access Approach to Hostage Works"

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 |