Sunday, April 29, 2007

Elsevier charging more for hybrid journals?

William Walsh has put together a table of Subscription Costs for Elsevier Hybrid Journals. While Elsevier has promised to reduce subscription costs based on author payments, the average cost increase for Elsevier hybrid journals (6.39%) is higher than that for Elsevier journals overall (5.5%).

Thanks to William, and to Peter Suber on Open Access News for the alert and comments.

To me, this illustrates well why librarians should be involved in coordinating author processing fee charges (regardless of whether these are paid by funding agencies, departments, or the libraries). It is only when the two forms of payment (subscriptions and article processing fees) are brought together, that the payee is in a good position to understand what is happening, and effectively negotiate the best solution.

Any opinion expressed in this post is that of the author alone, and does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Why you’re crazy if you’re NOT submitting your LIS output to E-LIS

According to Laurie the Librarian, if you are not submitting your LIST output to E-LIS, you are crazy!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

An Open Window Heralds Open Medicine

This is a good day for academic librarians who want to be equal partners in the academic enterprise. Those open access (OA) librarians who have been following the story will be pleased to learn that Open Medicine, a peer-reviewed, independent, international medical journal supporting academic freedom and open access, was launched today.

Open Medicine is open to all, doctors and the general public, and there are no strings attached - no political interference, no pharmaceutical patronage, no conflicts of interests and no exorbitant subscription costs or pay-per-article restrictions. Direct access to real content - openly-accessible.

The editorial team of consists of a group of academics and scientists, including co-editors Stephen Choi and Anita Palepu, associate editors Dean Giustini (OA librarian), John Hoey, Anne Marie Todkill, Claire Kendall and others, as well as our volunteer publisher John Willinsky ( author of The access principle: The case for open access to research and scholarship and founder of the Public Knowledge Project ). We are committed to “the equitable global dissemination of high-quality health research; to promote international dialogue and collaboration on health issues; to improve clinical practice; and to expand and deepen the understanding of health and health care”.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Web 2.0 and scholarly publishing in DC

allen.jpgThe Allen Press' Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing seminar (held last week in Washington, D.C.) focussed on the practical uses and application of social software in scientific, medical and technological domains - but also the real and possible social impact of Web 2.0 tools. Prominent ideas for me? egalitarianism in publishing and peer review vs. reconciling the need for viable business models and maintaining efficiency and high standards in publishing. See my thoughts in progress about Web 2.0 and medicine.

Two of the speakers, Richard Akerman, the only other Canadian, and Konrad Förstner, are bloggers - check out their posts. A number of medical publishers were in attendance such as the New England Journal of Medicine, and several association publishers, who expressed interest in the launch of Open Medicine.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Researchers' Use of Academic Libraries and Their Services

This major study involving over 2,250 researchers and 300 librarians will be of interest to librarians everywhere for a number of reasons, including of course open access:

Researchers' use of academic libraries and their services, was commissioned by Research Information Network (RIN) and Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL) and carried out by Sheridan Brown and Alma Swan of Key Perspectives.

This report shows that we have educational and promotional work to do! Findings include:

About 1 in 10 researchers fully understand open access

Researchers' awareness of institutional repositories is lagging; 52% of librarians said their institution had an IR, but only 15% of researchers.

Thanks to Peter Suber, who provides a useful extract and comments.

Open Libraries blog

Jay Datema, incoming technology editor for Library Journal, has a very cool Open Libraries blog.

Thanks to Peter Suber of Open Access News

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Open Medicine (forthcoming OA journal)

Open Medicine is a forthcoming OA journal worth noting! Open Medicine has attracted an extremely prominent Editorial Board. It is currently comprised of 26 outstanding academics and scientists who are leaders in their respective fields.

The editorial team includes noted OA Librarian and Canadian Health Librarian of the year, Dean Giustini, as well as John Willinsky, principal investigator of the Public Knowledge Project.

From the web site:
The mission of Open Medicine is to facilitate the equitable global dissemination of high-quality health research; to promote international dialogue and collaboration on health issues; to improve clinical practice; and to expand and deepen the understanding of health and health care.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

SSHRC Aid to Open Access Journals

It's been mentioned on other blogs (Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, Peter Suber, etc) but I thought a note about the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's (SSHRC) recently-released Aid to Open Access Journals would be appropriate here (most of the bloggers on OA Librarian are Canadian and this is a Canadian program so...).

Anyway, as noted, SSHRC recently came out with a support program for Canadian OA journals in the social sciences and humanities. Details are at http://www.sshrc.ca/web/apply/program_descriptions/open_access_journals_e.asp#5.

Wearing my Serials Librarian hat, I have to say that this program may be very welcome; I certainly think it's a good idea. Some Canadian publishers of social sciences and humanities journals (societies, associations) have been a little freaked out about OA and how it can be supported so hopefully the Aid to OA Journals will alleviate some worries. Of course, the program is aimed at already-OA journals that have been around for at least two years; maybe a program to support conversion to OA is coming sometime in the not-too-distant future? It also remains to be seen if the amount of the grant ($850 CAN per article published plus up to $5,000 CAN to help defray distribution costs) will be adequate. Finally, the grant is only for one year and is not renewable; what affect will this have on journals? How many journals will get "hooked" on the grant and face "withdrawl" at the end of the 12 months?

Monday, April 09, 2007

OA Librarian's Dean Giustini Wins Award

Congratulations to Dean, selected as the 2007 recipient of the Canadian Hospital Librarian of the Year Award. About the CHLA award.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

John Willinsky: Open Access: the Sea Change audio recording available

The University of Alberta Libraries is pleased to make available an audio recording of our March 20th forum with Dr. John Willinsky - Open Access: The Sea Change in Scholarly Publishing (mp3 format) - http://www.library.ualberta.ca/audio/openaccess.mp3


Dr. Willinsky’s award-winning Public Knowledge Project is the world’s leading open source software for journal publishing, and his recent book The Access Principle (MIT Press, 2006) has won this year’s Blackwell Award for Scholarship.

To learn more about support available from the University of Alberta Libraries, visit our Open Access Publishing Information Site - http://blogs.library.ualberta.ca/oa/

Thanks to Pam Ryan