Friday, December 22, 2006

BMC article processing charge to increase

BioMed Central's standard article processing charge (APC) is set to increase from 750 to 850 pounds starting in January 2007. This will cover "the BMC-series of journals and other titles for which peer review is organised in-house". Some "in-house" journals will have higher APCs. The standard APC for "independent" BMC journals will rise to 800 pounds on July 1, 2007 though some of these will have different APCs.

The BMC announcement of this change can be found at http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/pr-releases?pr=20061220. Peter Suber has, of course, already noted the change on his fine blog at http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_12_17_fosblogarchive.html#116673666883616482.

I'm not surprised to see these increases. I suspect we'll see similar increases from other publishers. Fortunately, the BMC submission fees are still cheaper than most others.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

British Medical Journal & Open Access

At least two articles that discuss open access (or touch on related issues, such as Web 2.0) are featured in this week's British Medical Journal. The first, authored by John Wilbanks, Executive Director of MIT's Science Commons Project, discusses open access and freely-available open source software in science; the second is an article that I wrote about Web 2.0 but whose main ideas are inspired by open access. I'd like to thank my LIBR534 students (and my colleague Greg Rowell) for helping me understand the synergy created by open access and Web 2.0. Merry Xmas, Dean

Another reason for opening access to research - John Wilbanks.

How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine: Is a Medical Wikipedia the next step? - Dean Giustini

Happy Holidays from OA Librarian!

Happy Holidays from OA Librarian! Time to the enjoy the fun open access stuff - like sharing free photos from http://www.flickr.com/

Christmas dance (without hats)
Georgie Sharpe, CC: Some Rights Reserved
http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgiesharp/311749961/

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

PLoS One About to Launch

Thanks to Peter Suber and Liz Allen for the exciting news that PLoS ONE is about to launch.

The Public Library of Science has been one of the highest profile open access publishers since 2003. Their initial publishing model is an example of "Open Access 1.0." PLoS ONE is typical of "Open Access 2.0," a more democratic system in which readers are encouraged to annotate, rank, and comment about articles.

Open access has always been about increasing access to scientific literature, and now more than ever will focus on enhancing discussion as well.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Welcome Richard Baer!

OA Librarian's newest blog team member is Richard Baer, a Librarian at Camosun College Library in Victoria, British Columbia, and teacher in the Langara College Library Technician program. Richard has several blogs of his own, including Richard's Libtech Tips.

Welcome Richard!

Monday, December 18, 2006

BCLA response to draft CIHR policy

The British Columbia Library Association response to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research consultation on theDraft Policy on Access to Research Outputs has been posted, and is available for download.

Highlights: BCLA congratulates CIHR for developing a draft policy that is considered exemplary, a role model for other funding agencies.

"This draft policy will make research funded by Canadian taxpayers readily available to many more Canadians, as well as to researchers around the world. In a province like British Columbia, this will particularly make a difference to students, faculty, high school students, and health care professionals outside of the major research centres. This policy is considered exemplary by open access advocates, for good reason. The support for open access to research data is particularly noteworthy. This is an area where Canada has an opportunity to become a world leader, advancing research in the medical arena more quickly for the benefit of all, and also advancing Canadian economic interests in the knowledge economy.

Several particular strengths of the policy we would like to highlight are the requirement to deposit peer-reviewed research articles immediately on publication, the encouragement to retroactively archive important articles, and the indication that a researcher’s track record in providing access will be considered with future grant applications."

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Newspaper chain goes Creative Commons!

Gatehouse Media has added Creative Commons licenses to their chain of 96 newspapers.

Thanks to Richard Baer.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Friday, December 15, 2006

DOAJ hits 2500

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (www.doaj.org) has reached a notable milestone. According to an announcement released on December 15, 2006
(www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTempl&templ=061215), there are now 2500 OA journals in the DOAJ, with OA journals being defined as "quality controlled scientific and scholarly electronic journals that are freely available on the web". The number of DOAJ OA journals has grown steadily; 1.5 additions a day has been quoted as an average and approximately 500 journals have been added (so far) in calendar 2006.

Congratulations to the DOAJ!

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Open DOAR: Search Repository Contents

These folks have beat us to the search engine we've wanted for years! Very impressive, especially since it's still in beta:
Open DOAR: Search Repository Contents - uses google custom search to search contents of all the Open DOAR repositories.

Thanks to Richard Baer.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference: Second Call for Papers

First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference: Second Call for Papers
Vancouver, July 11-13, 2007
WEBSITE: http://pkp.sfu.ca/node/493

The Public Knowledge Project at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University is pleased to announce that the first international PKP conference will be held from July 11–13, 2007 in Vancouver. The conference will provide opportunities for those involved in the organization, promotion, and study of scholarly communication to share and discuss innovative work in scholarly publishing, with a focus on the contribution that open source publishing technologies (such as Open Journal Systems) can make to improving access to research and scholarship on a global and public scale. The conference will appeal to all those with an interest in the future of scholarly publishing community: software developers and technical support specialists; journal publishers, editors, and staff; librarians; and researchers in scholarly publishing.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Abstract Deadline (required): January 15, 2007
Paper and PowerPoint Submission (desired but not required for public posting): July 1, 2007
This conference, which uses Open Conference Systems developed by the Public Knowledge Project, enables participants to submit abstracts online at http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/submit.php.

Presentations can include:
• Single papers (abstract max of 500 words)
• Multiple paper sessions (overview max of 500 words)

Call for Papers Announcement
The conference stream for those involved in the practices and study of journal publishing will focus on the following themes and topics:
* Scholarly publishing in developing countries;
* Open access and the academy: reforming and opening the peer review process, implications for academic freedom;
* New journals, new models: the how and why of starting a new journal, new economic models for old journals, encouraging open data and related practices;
* Promotion and growth: building readership, authorship, and reviewership; open access is public access - challenges and benefits;
* Improving the features and design of publishing software

The conference stream for librarians and information specialists will focus on the following themes and topics:
* The role of libraries in supporting and developing emerging or alternate forms of scholarly communication, e.g., the library as publisher, implications for collections budgets and policies;
* Incorporating and supporting open access publications as part of current collections and related services;
* Using PKP software and related open source tools in libraries, e.g., “best practices” or case studies.

The conference stream for open source software developers and other technical experts working with PKP software will address the following:
* Understanding and working with PKP software and its “plug-in” architecture;
* Building a PKP developers’ community including software contributions and collaborative projects;
* PKP software development priorities and plans.

Heather G. Morrison
PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference Committee

Monday, December 11, 2006

Peter Suber: heart of the open access movement

Of all the organs, the heart is the most vital; it is the most central in function, the one on which we all depend.

The legendarily hard-working Peter Suber manages, amazingly, to keep so up to speed on open access happenings around the world that his Open Access News blog is the authoritative source for OA news - and perspectives.

Many of us are very aware of how fast Peter is at reporting the news. If you haven't been following as closely, let me express it this way: many people think I'm pretty good at keeping up - but, I often find out what is happening in my own country by reading Peter's blog. He is so fast, I'm just waiting for the day when he reports one of my posts on OA Librarian or The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics - before I write it! (If this happened, I'd be surprised - but, only a little).

The heart, of course, is more than an organ; it is a symbol - of love, and of kindness. How appropriate a symbol, for a diplomat in an arena long known for heated debate, although lately it appears that tempers are beginning to cool and reason will likely prevail.

How appropriate too, for this fine writer who, among other things, drafted the Budapest Open Access Initiative with such beautiful phrases as an old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good.

Peter's qualifications as an honorary librarian go back to his days as a professor at Earlham College, where his Library Reports Assignment is a librarian's dream - an assignment "simply to use the library throughout the semester to help you understand and assess the reading"; one rationale of the assignment "simply to become comfortable using the library". Open Access News so frequently covers open access leadership and initiatives by librarians, it is a better source for this news than OA Librarian (although OA Librarian is more focused, and a pathfinder as well as a newsblog - so stay with us!).

There is so much happening in open access, it's impossible for anyone to completely keep up, although Peter is still the best.

Peter - thank you so much for all that you do; your speed of reporting speeds up open access action, in my opinion, and your sage comments help keep us all on track; so, keep on keeping up - or hurry up, if you can...

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

John Willinsky and the Public Knowledge Project

OA Librarians may be interested in my blogpost about John Willinsky and the Public Knowledge Project, posted on The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

The Access Principle: now available in DLIST

Dr. John Willinsky's award-winning book, The Access Principle, is now available in DLIST. The Access Principle is also available for free downloand, or sale, from MIT Press - worthy of consideration as a Christmas gift for that academic administrator friend - or open access afficianado, perhaps?

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Open Access Magazine Collection

Inspired by suggestions from BC Electronic Library Network partner libraries, the reSearcher team has set up a collaborative Open Access Magazine Collection for the CUFTS knowledgebase. For more details, please see the BC ELN website.

Heather Morrison
Project Coordinator
BC Electronic Library Network

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

CLA Task Force on Open Access

In response to member interest, the Canadian Library Association has created a Task Force on Open Access.

The mandate of this Task Force is to prepare a report for CLA Executive Council providing:
(1) a draft Policy Statement on Open Access in the Canadian Library
Association;
(2) recommendations on procedures and practices to implement the Policy
should it be approved;
(3) a draft CLA Position Statement on Open Access in Canadian libraries.

The Task Force is very interested in hearing from you!

To keep up to date, please see the CLA Information Commons Interest
Group Wiki page on the Task Force on Open Access, at:
http://www.infocommons.ca/wiki/index.php? title=CLA_Open_Access_Task_Force

Or, please feel free to contact the Convenor or any of the Members to
share your thoughts about open access. For contact information, visit
the CLA website at:
http://www.cla.ca/about/committees/openaccess.html

If there are similar groups in other countries - we'd love to hear from you!
Heather Morrison, Convenor, CLA Task Force on Open Access

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Kumiko Vézina: new Chief E-LIS Editor, Canada

On December 1, 2006 Kumiko Vézina, became the Chief E-LIS Editor for Canada.

Kumiko is the Electronic Resources Librarian at Concordia University in Montréal and is working on her thesis; her research focuses on open access. Kumiko is fluently bilingual in english and french. She was one of the original members of the E-LIS Canada team, and is also a member of the OA Librarian Team.

Kumiko takes over from Heather Morrison, who remains a part of the E-LIS Canada editorial team, along with Andrew Waller and Shelley Brown.

For information about E-LIS, the Open Archive in Library and Information Studies, please contact Kumiko - or, if you are from another country, look up the volunteer Editor for your country under E-LIS: Who We Are.

Partnership (new open access LIS journal)

Partnership, the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, launched its first issue this week! From the website, simply click on CURRENT to view the Table of Contents.

Among the Open Access related items:

The Welcome Message from Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Richards, outlining our philosophy of open access and high standards for rigorous peer review;

Open Access Initiatives in India - an Evaluation, by Leila Fernandez

Libre accès à la recherche scientifique : opinions et pratiques des chercheurs au Québec, by Kumiko Vézina. [This research was presented last summer in English at the Canadian Library Association - the presentation is available in E-LIS]. In brief, researchers in biology and life sciences at 6 major universities in Quebec were surveyed about their knowledge and practice of open access. Vézina's study confirms the findings of Swan and Brown, that if authors were required to self-archive, over 80% would do so willingly. One surprise of this study is that about a third of the researchers reported having already published in an open access journal.

Beyond the Patriot Act: Rulings from the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and their Effects on Canadian Libraries, by Andrew Waller, is highly recommended, as it addresses important issues in scholarly communications, even though it is not directly on open access.

Under News and Announcements:
First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference
Depositing Your Work in E-LIS: the Open Archive for Library and Information Science

There are many other articles that will be of interest to librarians - from video streaming to e-learning, to professional development, to profiles of librarians and news from all the provincial library associations which form the Partnership.

Disclosure: there is a close relationship between OA Librarian and Partnership! I am the BCLA rep, and Editor, Theory / Research. Two of the OA Librarian team, Kumiko Vézina and Andrew Waller, are among the authors of the first issue. Many thanks to the Partnership of library associations across Canada for their support for this venture, and to Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Richards.

The deadline for submissions to the peer-reviewed sections (Innovations in Practice, Theory and Research, Conference Spotlight) for the Spring issue is February 28, 2007. International submissions are welcome.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

UBC Google Scholar one of top-rated medical librarian blogs!

According to Oliver Obst, four US / Canadian blogs "are a continuous source of knowledge, information, and tips" - including UBC Google Scholar Blog, one of the other blogs by OA Librarian blog team member Dean Giustini.

Obst' article on Web 2.0, p. 50 in the Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries, presents a table of the top-ranked blogs by or for medical librarians, according to Technorati. UBC Google Scholar Blog ranks second!

Congraulations, Dean!

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.