Ann Okerson: An Unauthorized Tribute

Would the conscientiously, studiously neutral moderator of Liblicense-L care to be cast an open access advocate? My suspicion is no - therefore, this particular tribute is completely unauthorized.

Ann Shumelda Okerson has a personal tradition of self-archiving on her own web site that is as awesomely open as any archivangelist might wish.

Many of us have benefited from the Liblicense-L discussion list over the years - a forum that is open in more than one sense. Liblicense-L is a public list, open for anyone to participate or to view the archives. The discussion list itself, in my opinion, is a model of a new form of open scholarly communication. Plus, the topics of discussion, while revolving around the central theme of database licensing, are open to include related topics, such as all of the broader changes occurring in scholarly communications, including open access. No wonder Liblicense-L has been one of the most interesting discussion venues for open access.

Over the years, Ann has worked hard in collaboration with others to expand access to knowledge to those in developing countries, helping to develop the HINARI project. Most recently, Ann has become one of the directors of the OARE project. As reported by Peter Suber in Open Access News, OARE will "make prestigious scientific journals in the environment sciences available online to the developing world at little or no cost."

For all that you do to make the world a more open place, Ann: thanks!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.