Category: Open Access

Digital Video of the Age of Open Access: New Paradigm for Universities and Researchers Session

The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences has released a digital video of the Age of Open Access: New Paradigm for Universities and Researchers session at Concordia University. (No audio during first 48 seconds.)

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Significant technological advances in recent years have made research more accessible than ever. Funding agencies now require researchers to make their findings accessible in open access journals, which have grown significantly in number. Universities everywhere are adopting policies mandating their researchers to post a copy of their published work on institutional repositories accessible to the public. These changes in the way scholarly content is made available are raising the many questions that will be the focus of this panel discussion. What challenges are facing universities that want to promote greater accessibility to their faculties research? What support and infrastructure are necessary for the journals to continue to survive (or better still, thrive) in this new environment? What are the choices and challenges facing researchers interested in advancing their research?

Join moderator Guy Berthiaume (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec) at this panel discussion with John Willinsky (Stanford University), Michael Geist (University of Ottawa), Heather Joseph (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, Washington), and Gerald Beasley (Concordia University).

Open Access in Italy: Report 2009

SELL (Southern European Libraries Link) has released Open Access in Italy: Report 2009.

Here's an excerpt:

In Italy the OA movement has mainly pursued a "bottom up approach." Librarians, IT professionals, senior researchers, early adopters in individual universities and research centres have been actively involved in promoting awareness on OA issues, in implementing repositories, in planning projects, writing policies, developing tools. Initially, the academic institutional hierarchies failed to take any clear stand on the issue.

No specific national funding has been allocated for open access initiatives and in most cases the implementation of the Open Archive was financed with ordinary budget expenditures.

In a limited number of cases (i.e. University of Cagliari, University of Naples Parthenope, University of Sassari, and University of Trieste) the repositories were successfully funded under Regional spending. To date neither the government nor the Ministry of Education and Research have made any recommendations on this matter or provided any funding. Parliament has made no stand on the issue.

Presentations from the University of North Texas Open Access Symposium

Presentations from the University of North Texas Open Access Symposium are now available.

Here are the PDF files:

Open Data Study

The Open Society Institute's Transparency and Accountability Initiative has released the Open Data Study.

Here's an excerpt:

There are substantial social and economic gains to be made from opening government data to the public. The combination of geographic, budget, demographic, services, education and other data, publicly available in an open format on the web, promises to improve services as well as create future economic growth.

This approach has been recently pioneered by governments in the United State and the United Kingdom (with the launch of two web portals – www.data.gov and www.data.gov.uk respectively) inspired in part by applications developed by grassroots civil society organisations ranging from bicycle accidents maps to sites breaking down how and where tax money is spent. In the UK, the data.gov.uk initiative was spearheaded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

This research, commissioned by a consortium of funders and NGOs under the umbrella of the Transparency and Accountability Initiative, seeks to explore the feasibility of applying this approach to open data in relevant middle income and developing countries. Its aim is to identify the strategies used in the US and UK contexts with a view to building a set of criteria to guide the selection of pilot countries, which in turn suggests a template strategy to open government data.

Nature Publishing Group Adds Open Access Options for 7 Journals

The Nature Publishing Group has added open access options for 7 more journals.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is pleased to announce open access options for seven further journals. Twenty-five journals published by NPG now offer authors an open access option, including all 15 academic journals owned by NPG.

American Journal of Gastroenterology, Bone Marrow Transplantation, Gene Therapy, International Journal of Obesity, Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, Oncogene, and Leukemia have all recently introduced open access options. Authors publishing in these journals can now choose to make their article open access on payment of an article processing charge (APC). . . .

Including the American Journal of Gastroenterology and Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, seven journals published by NPG on behalf of societies offer open access options. Other journals in this portfolio with an open access are: British Journal of Cancer, The EMBO Journal, EMBO reports, European Journal of Human Genetics and Molecular Therapy. . . .

Launched in April 2010, Nature Communications is the first Nature-branded online-only journal with an open access option. In 2009, NPG introduced open access options on twelve of its academic journals.

NPG also publishes two fully open access journals: Cell Death and Disease and Molecular Systems Biology. Cell Death & Disease, launched in January 2010, is the open access sister title to Cell Death & Differentiation. Launched in 2005, Molecular Systems Biology is published in association with the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and has a 2008 Impact Factor of 12.243.

NPG's self-archiving policy ensures that authors of original research papers can comply with funder mandates for public access, regardless of which NPG journal they publish in. In addition, NPG offers a free Manuscript Deposition Service into PubMed Central and UK PubMed Central on 43 of its titles.

Open Source Data Registry Software: CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network) Version 1.0 Released

The Open Knowledge Foundation has released CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network) version 1.0.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

As well as being used to power http://ckan.net and http://data.gov.uk CKAN is now helping run 7 data catalogues around the world including ones in Canada (http://datadotgc.ca / http://ca.ckan.net), Germany (http://de.ckan.net/) and Norway (http://no.ckan.net).

CKAN.net has also continued to grow steadily and now has over 940 registered packages:

Here's a description of CKAN from the project page:

CKAN is a registry or catalogue system for datasets or other "knowledge" resources. CKAN aims to make it easy to find, share and reuse open content and data, especially in ways that are machine automatable.

Special Issue of Research Library Issues on Strategies for Opening Up Content

ARL has published a special issue of Research Library Issues on strategies for opening up content.

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

The special issue focuses on approaches now being deployed to increase the amount of content that is open and available to the research library community and by extension the larger world.

In an introductory essay, guest editor Julia C. Blixrud, ARL Assistant Executive Director, Scholarly Communication, highlights the array of institutional, library, and author strategies now in use. She encourages the community to learn from the experiences of others as a way of identifying those strategies that have the best prospects for success in their own circumstances.

Other articles in the special issue are:

Open-Access Funds: Design and Implementation on Campus Webcast Available

SPARC has released a webcast about Open-Access Funds: Design and Implementation on Campus.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

SPARC consultant and author of a set of new SPARC resources, Greg Tananbaum, joined us to explore why institutions are launching open-access funds, what practical and policy issues go into such a decision, how faculty and administration have reacted to these funds, what the results to date have been, and what SPARC is doing to evaluate and track the impact of these funds. Members of the advisory group that helped to develop the guide and SPARC resource, and whose experience in operating funds on their campuses has been an essential resource for others in the space, were also available to field questions.

Draft of University of North Texas Policy on Open Access to Scholarly Works Released

The UNT Open Access Policy Committee has released its draft "University of North Texas Policy on Open Access to Scholarly Works."

Here's an excerpt:

In support of long-term stewardship and preservation of UNT faculty members’ scholarly works in digital form, the UNT community members agree to the following:

  • Each UNT community member deposits a final version of his/her scholarly works in to which he or she made substantial intellectual contributions in the UNT Libraries Scholarly Works repository.
  • Some scholarly works may have access constraints that limit or preclude access to individual works.
  • The Provost’s Designate will work with community members who deposit works into repository to ensure an appropriate level of access to individual scholarly works.
  • UNT Libraries will be responsible for the secure storage (including appropriate access constraints), stewardship, and preservation of all deposited scholarly works.

In support of greater access to scholarly works, the UNT community members agree to the following for peer-reviewed, accepted-for-publication, journal articles:

  • Immediate Deposit: Each UNT community member deposits an electronic copy of his/her final edited version after peer review and acceptance of each article, no later than the date of its publication. Deposit is made into the UNT Libraries Scholarly Works repository. The author is encouraged to make the deposit available to the public by setting access to the deposit as Open Access Immediately Upon Deposit.
  • Optional Delayed Open Access: Upon express direction by a UNT community member for an individual article, the Provost or Provost’s designate will adjust the Open Access Immediately Upon Deposit requirement to align with publishers’ policies regarding open access of self-archived works or the wishes of the community member
  • Licensing: Where not prohibited by a publisher, each UNT community member grants to UNT permission to make scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles to which he or she made substantial intellectual contributions publicly available in the UNT Libraries Scholarly Works repository for the purpose of open dissemination. Each UNT community member grants to UNT a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do so, provided that the articles are not sold. The Provost or Provost's designate will waive application of the license for a particular article upon express direction by a community member.
  • Who Deposits: In the case of multiple authors from multiple institutions, where a UNT community member has made substantial intellectual contributions to the article, the UNT community member will deposit a copy of the article. In the case of multiple UNT authors, and where the lead author is from UNT, the lead author (or designate) will deposit a copy of the article.

To ensure this policy is effective, the following apply:

  • 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 the Faculty Senate, in concert with the Provost’s office, every three years, and a report presented to the Faculty Senate.

Directory of Open Access Journals Tops 5,000 Journal Records

The Directory of Open Access Journals now contains records for more than 5,000 journals.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Directory of Open Access Journals reaches new milestones—now 7 years of operation, now more than 5,000 journals, now more than 2,000 journals searchable on article level, very soon more than 400,000 articles searchable! . . .

San José State University Academic Senate Passes Resolution Supporting Open Access

The San José State University Academic Senate has passed "SS-S10-2, Sense of the Senate Resolution, Support for Open Access to Scholarly Work and Research."

Here's an excerpt:

Resolved: that the San José State University Academic Senate support the principle of open access to scholarly work and research, and

Resolved: that the San José State University Academic Senate support new models for scholarly publishing that will promote open access and are consistent with standards for peer review and scholarly excellence, and

Resolved: that the San José State University Academic Senate encourage the university to promote the use of the institutional repository—and other new and existing infrastructures—for the dissemination of knowledge created at SJSU to the local, state and global community.

Resolved: that the Academic Senate of San José State University continues to affirm the rights of faculty to publish in the publications of their choice.

Resolved: that the Academic Senate encourage the university to promote the use of the institutional repository and to develop a formal organizational process that shall clearly indicate:

  1. which academic unit (such as the Library) will manage acquisition and maintenance of open access material and issue communications regarding the use of the open access repository;
  2. the scope of the term "faculty" in relation to the open access archive;
  3. the procedure for notifying the faculty how to submit material into the repository;
  4. the nature of the material to be included in the repository;
  5. a procedure for identifying the costs of maintaining the repository and allocating funds to maintain the repository;
  6. a unit outside of the repository unit (such as the Provost Office) responsible for monitoring the progress of the repository and for resolving conflicts or uncertainties regarding the operation of the repository.

Queen's University Librarians and Archivists Pass Open Access Policy

Librarians and archivists at Queen's University have adopted an open access policy.

Here's the policy:

Librarians and archivists at Queen's University recognize the importance of open access to content creators and researchers in fostering new ideas, creating knowledge and ensuring that it is available as widely as possible. In keeping with our long-standing support of the Open Access movement, Queen's librarians and archivists move to adopt a policy which would ensure our research is disseminated as widely as possible and available in perpetuity through deposit in Queen's institutional repository, QSpace.

Policy Statement

Academic librarians and archivists at Queen's University [1] commit to making the best possible effort to publish in venues providing unrestricted public access to their works. They will endeavour to secure the right to self-archive their published materials, and will deposit these works in QSpace.

The Queen's University academic librarian and archivist complement grant Queen's University Libraries the non-exclusive right to make their scholarly publications accessible through self-archiving in the QSpace institutional repository subject to copyright restrictions.

Guidelines

This policy applies to all scholarly and professional work produced as a member of Queen's University academic staff produced as of the date of the adoption of this policy. Retrospective deposit is encouraged. Co-authored works should be included with the permission of the other author(s).

Examples of works include:

  • Scholarly and professional articles
  • Substantive presentations, including slides and text
  • Books/book chapters
  • Reports
  • Substantive pedagogical materials such as online tutorials

Works should be deposited in QSpace as soon as is possible, recognizing that some publishers may impose an embargo period.

This policy is effective as of 01/01/2010 and will be assessed a year after implementation.

[1] As defined by Collective Agreement 2008-2011, Article 25.1.5.

Internet Archive Makes over a Million DAISY Standard Digital Books Freely Available to Blind, Dyslexic, and Visually Impaired Users

The Internet Archive has made over one million digital books in the DAISY Standard for Digital Talking Books freely available to blind, dyslexic, and other visually impaired users.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

More than doubling the number of books available to print disabled people of all ages, today the Internet Archive launched a new service that brings free access to more than 1 million books — from classic 19th century fiction and current novels to technical guides and research materials — now available in the specially designed format to support those who are blind, dyslexic or are otherwise visually impaired. . . .

The 1 million+ books in the Internet Archive’s library for print disabled, are scanned from hard copy books then digitized into DAISY — a specialized format used by blind or other persons with disabilities, for easy navigation. Files are downloaded to devices that translate the text and read the books aloud for the user to enjoy. To access books visit: http://openlibrary.org/subjects/accessible_book. . . .

Older books are available from the Internet Archive’s unencrypted DAISY library and modern books can be accessed by "qualified users" through their NLS key — an encrypted code provided by the Library of Congress' National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), that is dedicated to providing materials to the print disabled. Currently, over 800,000 people in the US are registered with the Library of Congress as being print disabled.

As of today, the Internet Archive offers over one million books for print disabled people. Other large libraries for the print disabled including NLS, Bookshare.org, and Reading for the Blind & Dyslexic.. . .

Most of the older books have been scanned from library collections, with newer books having been donated to the Internet Archive by companies such as the online bookseller Alibris, libraries and individuals.

The print disabled collection of books are now available through the Archive’s new Open Library site (www.openlibrary.org), which serves as a gateway to information about millions of hardcopy books and more than 1 million electronic books.

To access all books, a United States resident with print disabilities must register with the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/nls/signup.html.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Faculty Senate Passes Resolution Supporting Institutional Repository

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Faculty Senate has passed a resolution supporting DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The repository contains more than 40,000 documents, and more than 500 faculty members have deposited documents in it.

Here's the resolution:

Resolution on Digital Commons Institutional Repository

The Research Council to the Faculty Senate:

Whereas — Many members of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty from every college have taken advantage of services offered by the Libraries to create and populate a very successful institutional repository, the UNL Digital Commons, now containing more than 27,000 open-access items of faculty and student research, including articles, original monographs, and journals, as well as more than 11,000 dissertations, and

whereas — this repository is one of the largest academic institutional repositories in the United States, is accessed from more than 150 countries, and is indexed by Google and other major search engines, and

whereas — online open-access electronic dissemination of scholarship is an extremely effective way to enhance the visibility, recognition, and reach of faculty research,

be it resolved — that the participating faculty are to be congratulated for their support and use of the institutional repository and that all faculty are to be encouraged to take advantage of these services.

Read more about it at "University of Nebraska-Lincoln Faculty Senate Endorses Open Access."

Concordia University Senate Approves Open Access Policy

The Concordia University Senate has passed an open access policy. Concordia University has a "student body of almost 44,000 undergraduate, graduate and continuing education students from more than 150 countries, studying in over 500 programs."

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Concordia University’s academic community has passed a landmark Senate Resolution on Open Access that encourages all of its faculty and students to make their peer-reviewed research and creative output freely accessible via the internet. Concordia is the first major university in Canada where faculty have given their overwhelming support to a concerted effort to make the full results of their research universally available. . . .

Gerald Beasley, Concordia’s University Librarian, was instrumental in the campus-wide dialogue on open access that began more than a year ago. "I am delighted that Senate voted to support the recommendations of all four Faculty Councils and the Council of the School of Graduate Studies. There are only a handful of precedents in North America for the kind of leadership that Concordia faculty have demonstrated by their determination to make publicly-funded research available to all rather than just the minority able to afford the rapidly rising subscription costs of scholarly databases, books and journals."

This past year, Concordia launched Spectrum, an open access digital repository that continues to grow beyond its initial 6,000 dissertations submitted at Concordia, and at its predecessors Sir George Williams University and Loyola College. The Senate Resolution encourages all of Concordia's researchers to deposit their research and creative work in Spectrum.

Here's the policy:

Whereas

Open access makes the results of publicly funded academic research and creative work accessible to everyone via the internet and succeeds by supplementing but not replacing peer-reviewed journals and other established publishing venues, and

whereas Concordia University wishes to take a leadership role in Canada and exemplify social responsibility by supporting the principles of open access and has recently launched Spectrum, an open access repository freely available to receive the refereed academic research output and creative work voluntarily deposited by Concordia faculty and others, with assistance from librarians and other library staff as required, thereby satisfying the requirements of a number of funding agencies in Canada and elsewhere without affecting the intellectual property rights, responsibilities and academic freedom of faculty members;

It was resolved that Senate recommends that Concordia University:

– from now on encourages all its faculty members to deposit an electronic copy of their refereed research output and creative work in Spectrum, along with nonexclusive permission to preserve and freely disseminate it; and

– furthermore, in the specific case of any scholarly article accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, from now on requires all faculty members to deposit an electronic copy in Spectrum along with non-exclusive permission to preserve and freely disseminate it. This requirement is not binding in cases where publishers, co-authors or other rights holders disallow such a deposit. Faculty members may also, without prejudice, opt out of the requirement by notifying the University Librarian in writing that their work has appeared, or will appear in another Open Access format; or by citing other factors that currently discourage them from depositing their work in an Open Access repository

Provosts and Presidents of 27 Major Research Institutions Support Federal Research Public Access Act

In "The Open Letter to the Higher Education Community" issued by the Harvard University Provost, the provosts and presidents of 27 major research institutions have indicated their strong support for the Federal Research Public Access Act.

Here's an excerpt:

The United States Congress will have the opportunity to consider the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA). FRPAA would require Federal agencies whose extramural research budgets exceed $100 million to develop policies ensuring open, public access to the research supported by their grants or conducted by their employees. This Bill embodies core ideals shared by higher education, research institutions and their partners everywhere. The Bill builds upon the success of the first U.S. policy for public access to publicly funded research mdash; implemented in 2008 through the National Institutes of Health—and mirrors the intent of campus-based policies for research access that are being adopted by a growing number of public and private institutions across the nation.

We believe that this legislation represents a watershed and provides an opportunity for the entire U.S. higher education and research community to draw upon their traditional partnerships and collaboratively realize the unquestionably good intentions of the Bill’s framers—broadening access to publicly funded research in order to accelerate the advancement of knowledge and maximize the related public good. By ensuring broad and diverse access to taxpayer-funded research the Bill also supports the intuitive and democratic principle that, with reasonable exceptions for issues of national security, the public ought to have access to the results of activities it funds.

The broad dissemination of the results of scholarly inquiry and discourse is essential for higher education to fulfill its long-standing commitment to the advancement and conveyance of knowledge. Indeed, it is mission critical. For the land-grant and publicly funded institutions among us, it addresses the complementary commitment to public service and public access that is included in our charters. In keeping with this mission, we agree with FRPAA’s basic premise that enabling the broadest possible access to new ideas resulting from government-funded research promotes progress, economic growth, and public welfare. Furthermore, we know that, when combined with public policy such as FRPAA proposes, the Internet and digital technology are powerful tools for removing access barriers and enabling new and creative uses of the results of research.

Collectively, our universities engage in billions of dollars of funded research. On average, approximately 50% of our research funding originates with the federal government. That public investment—estimated at over $60.5 billion for the research covered by FRPAA—is complemented by our own institutional investments in research units, laboratories, libraries, and the faculty and staff whose expertise permeates them.

FRPAA has the potential to enable the maximum downstream use of those investments. Many of us are already working on programs and policies to promote greater access to the wealth of research produced by our scholars; we are adopting policies for open access to the research outputs of our institutions; we are building open access digital repositories to collect research, developing advanced publishing channels, and working with our scholarly publishing partners to pursue the broadest possible distribution of scholarship at lowest possible costs. FRPAA will complement these efforts and be a powerful tool in ensuring their success.

Each month the evidence mounts that open access to research through digital distribution increases the use of that research and the visibility of its creators. Widespread public dissemination levels the economic playing field for researchers outside of well-funded universities and research centers and creates more opportunities for innovation. Ease of access and discovery also encourages use by scholars outside traditional disciplinary communities, thus encouraging imaginative and productive scholarly convergence.

Open and public access policies can also match the missions of scholarly societies and publishers who review, edit, and distribute research to serve the advancement of knowledge. Sharing the fruits of research and scholarship inevitably leads to the creation of more research and scholarship, thus highlighting the need for publishing professionals to manage the selection and review of the highest quality research, both publicly and privately funded.

Open and public access to publications in no way negates the need for well-managed and effective peer review or the need for formal publishing. It does, however, challenge us all to think about how best to align the intellectual and economic models for scholarly publishing with the needs of contemporary scholarship and the benefits, including low marginal costs of distribution, of network technology. That challenge is one that many scholarly societies and commercial publishers are already successfully engaging through a variety of business model experiments and partnerships. We believe that FRPAA productively calls for further engagement.

As scholars and university administrators, we are acutely aware that the present system of scholarly communication does not always serve the best interests of our institutions or the general public. Scholarly publishers, academic libraries, university leaders, and scholars themselves must engage in an ongoing dialogue about the means of scholarly production and distribution. This dialogue must acknowledge both our competing interests and our common goals. The passage of FRPAA will be an important step in catalyzing that dialogue, but it is not the last one that we will need to take.

FRPAA is good for education and good for research. It is good for the American public, and it promotes broad, democratic access to knowledge. While it challenges the academy and scholarly publishers to think and act creatively, it need not threaten nor undermine a successful balance of our interests. If passed, we will work with researchers, publishers, and federal agencies to ensure its successful implementation. We endorse FRPAA's aims and urge the academic community, individually and collectively, to voice support for its passage.

Open Access News Ceases Publication

Peter Suber has announced that Open Access News has ceased publication. OAN was a prolific (over 18,000 posts) and enormously influential blog that played a major role in launching and energizing the open access movement. Hats off to Peter Suber and Gavin Baker for writing this incredible publication.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Tomorrow (May 1, 2010) Google will turn off FTP updating for Blogger. The old FTP-based Blogger blogs can migrate to a new Google-hosted site where FTP won't be necessary. If a blog migrates, then all the posts in its archive will receive new URLs, all links to the old URLs will be redirected, all posts will carry their old page-rank to their new addresses, and Google will start indexing the new versions of the posts and stop indexing the old. If a blog doesn't migrate, it will die. Its archive may remain online, but it cannot be updated with new posts.

My days of heavy blogging at Open Access News are behind me. In July 2009, I curtailed my blogging to make room for my new work at the Berkman Center, and in January 2010 I cut back even further—essentially to zero—in favor of the Open Access Tracking Project, a more comprehensive and scalable alert service for the now very large and very fast-growing OA movement. OATP was not designed to do what OAN once did. But for several years now, the high volume of daily OA news has made it impossible to keep doing what OAN once did, even with an assistant.

Despite that, my plan was to keep Open Access News alive and contribute sporadically. But now Google has forced my hand.

I've decided not to migrate OAN. At first I worried about the risks to the large OAN archive: more than 18,000 posts in more than 400 files. I use the archive every day in my own research and I know that many of you use it too. It's still the best source for news and links about any OA development in the last eight years, and I didn't want to take the chance that even part of it might not survive the migration or might disappear behind broken links. Blogger has been very good about answering my anxious queries and I'm persuaded that the risks are low. But the fact remains that migration is irreversible.

Open Access in France: A State of the Art Report

The Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Couperin, and INIST-CNRS have released Open Access in France: A State of the Art Report.

Here's an excerpt:

The first part of the report provides some background information on the French public research environment, which is essential to understand the national development of Open Access.

The second part gives an historical overview on the development of both the green and golden roads to Open Access. It is not intended to be exhaustive but to highlight the major institutional entities in the French Open Access movement.

The third and fourth parts respectively describe and comment on the current situation of French Open Access journals and Open Access repositories.

The fifth part describes the major mass digitisation programs which are related to Open Access.

Federal Research Public Access Act of 2010 (FRPAA) Introduced in House of Representatives

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and a bi-partisan host of co-sponsors (Rep. Rick Boucher, Rep. Gregg Harper, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Rep. Henry A. Waxman) have introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2010 (H.R. 5037) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here's an excerpt from the Alliance For Taxpayer Access press release:

The proposed bill would build on the success of the first U.S. mandate for public access to the published results of publicly funded research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and require federal agencies with annual extramural research budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with online access to research manuscripts stemming from funded research no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. . . .

Like the Senate bill introduced in 2009 by Senators Lieberman (I-CT) and Cornyn (R-TX), H.R. 5037 would unlock unclassified research funded by agencies including: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

H.R. 5037 follows closely on the heels of a recent expression of interest in public access policies from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which issued a request for public comment on mechanisms that would leverage federal investments in scientific research and increase access to information that promises to stimulate scientific and technological innovation and competitiveness.

The Alliance For Taxpayer Access issued a call to action regarding the bill. Here's an excerpt:

Here's how you can help support this legislation:

  1. Send thanks to the Bill's sponsors, also through the ATA Action Center.
  2. Ask your representatives in Congress to co-sponsor H.R.5037 or S.1373. Act now through the ATA Legislative Action Center.
  3. Express your organization's support to Congress for public access to taxpayer-funded research and for this bill. Send a copy of your letter to sparc [at] arl [dot] org.
  4. Issue a public statement of support from your organization and share it widely with members, colleagues, and the media. Send a copy to sparc [at] arl [dot] org to be featured on the FRPAA Web site.
  5. Share news about this bill with friends and colleagues.
  6. Post the "I support taxpayer access" banner on your Web site.
  7. See the ATA Web site at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa for more ways you can support public access to publicly funded research and this bill.

Astrid van Wesenbeeck Named SPARC Europe Director

Astrid van Wesenbeeck has been named the Director of SPARC Europe.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Astrid van Wesenbeeck has been appointed and will initially start working with SPARC Europe part-time from 15th June and full-time from 12 July 2010. Astrid will take over from Dr David Prosser who was recently appointed Director of Research Libraries UK (RLUK).

The chair of SPARC Europe, Bas Savenije, says "It is with great pleasure that we announce the appointment of our new Director. We believe that Astrid has the necessary skills and background to continue SPARC Europe’s significant work for European research libraries, library organisations and research institutions. The SPARC Europe Board of Directors and I very much look forward to working with Astrid."

Astrid is currently Project manager and publishing consultant at IGITUR, Utrecht Publishing & Archiving Services at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She has broad experience in the publishing of Open Access journals, as well as in project management. Astrid will be based at the SPARC Europe Secretariat, which is kindly hosted by the National Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) in The Hague.

Aaron Ludwig Wins Sparky Awards Peoples' Choice prize

Aaron Ludwig, a sophomore animation student at Brigham Young University, has won the first Sparky Awards Peoples' Choice prize.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Aaron Ludwig, a sophomore animation student at Brigham Young University, has won the first-ever Sparky Awards Peoples’ Choice prize for his short film, "Clueless Discovery." The video was voted the best by students and others everywhere in an open online vote held earlier this Spring.

Organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and adopted by campuses everywhere, the Sparky Awards contest calls on entrants to creatively illustrate in a short video the value of openly sharing ideas. "Clueless Discovery" is a clear presentation of how failing to share information and "reinventing the wheel" not only hampers progress, but can be harmful. The clip is online at http://vimeo.com/6223728.

Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies

ITHAKA has released Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers, and Societies.

Here's an excerpt:

In the Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey 2009, we examined faculty attitudes and reported practices in three broad areas, finding that:

  • Basic scholarly information use practices have shifted rapidly in recent years, and as a result the academic library is increasingly being disintermediated from the discovery process, risking irrelevance in one of its core functional areas;
  • Faculty members' growing comfort relying exclusively on digital versions of scholarly materials opens new opportunities for libraries, new business models for publishers, and new challenges for preservation;
  • and Despite several years of sustained efforts by publishers, scholarly societies, libraries, faculty members, and others to reform various aspects of the scholarly communications system, a fundamentally conservative set of faculty attitudes continues to impede systematic change.

Read more about it at "Faculty Survey 2009."

"The Short-Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books on Print Sales"

John Hilton III and David Wiley have published "The Short-Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books on Print Sales" in the latest issue of The Journal of Electronic Publishing.

Here's an excerpt:

Increasingly, authors and publishers are freely distributing their books electronically to increase the visibility of their work. A vital question for those with a commercial stake in selling books is, "What happens to book sales if digital versions are given away?" We used BookScan sales data for four categories of books (a total of 41 books) for which we could identify the date when the free digital versions of the books were made available to determine whether the free version affected print sales. We analyzed the data on book sales for the eight weeks before and after the free versions were available. Three of the four categories of books had increased sales after the free books were distributed. We discuss the implications and limitations of these results.

"University Supports for Open Access: A Canadian National Survey"

Devon Greyson, Kumiko Vezina, Heather Morrison, Donald Taylor, and Charlyn Black have published "University Supports for Open Access: A Canadian National Survey" in the Canadian Journal of Higher Education.

Here's an excerpt:

The advent of policies at research-funding organizations requiring grantees to make their funded research openly accessible alters the life cycle of scholarly research. This survey-based study explores the approaches that libraries and research administration offices at the major Canadian universities are employing to support the research-production cycle in an open access era and, in particular, to support researcher adherence to funder open-access requirements. Responses from 21 universities indicated that librarians feel a strong sense of mandate to carry out open access-related activities and provide research supports, while research administrators have a lower sense of mandate and awareness and instead focus largely on assisting researchers with securing grant funding. Canadian research universities already contain infrastructure that could be leveraged to support open access, but maximizing these opportunities requires that research administration offices and university libraries work together more synergistically than they have done traditionally.