Sunday, February 24, 2008

IU Bloomington Libraries publish first open access journal!

See the IU Libraries Press Release for their announcement of the publication of the open access Museum Anthropology Review, using the free, open source Open Journal Systems.

Congratulations to Jason Baird Jackson, Editor, and IU Libraries!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Volunteer Recognition: Thomas Krichel

Christian Zimmerman on the RePEc blog, has written a very nice and well-deserved recognition of Thomas Krichel!. As Christian says, Thomas is not just a RePEc volunteer; he is RePEc.

The blogpost also notes some of Thomas' colleagues and helpers in building RePEc, among them librarians, Féthy Mili, Economics librarian at the Université de Montréal, and José Manuel Barrueco Cruz, Economics librarian at the University of Valencia.

Krichel is a library school professor at Long Island University, New York, and was previously recognized on OA Librarian in the post Thomas Krichel: a man with ideas, and drive!.

Krichel is also one of the driving forces behind E-LIS, the Open Archive for Library and Information Science.

Congratulations for this well-deserved honour, Thomas!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

OAPEN: peer reviewed open access books

Press release, 12-02-2008
Positive evaluation from European Commission for proposal "Open Access Publishing in European Networks" (OAPEN)

The European Commission announced that the proposal from Amsterdam University Press together with five European University Presses within the eContentplus Programme, has been selected for negotiations on funding. The opening of negotiations starts in March 2008. Completion of negotiations, award decision and signature of grant agreements are expected in May 2008.

OAPEN intends to develop and implement an Open Access publication model for peer reviewed academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. This Open Access publication model will also serve as a model in other scientific domains and improve the spread of European research results.
The project aims to achieve a sustainable European approach to improve the quantity, visibility and usability of high quality academic research and foster the creation of new content by developing future-oriented publishing solutions, including an Online Library.

OAPEN addresses the needs of small to medium enterprises and not-for-profit publishers and seeks to offer solutions to both publishers and others stakeholders, such as authors, libraries, research funding bodies, and policy makers.
OAPEN will also aggregate content from other publishers in the Humanities and Social Sciences in order to expand the available Open Access content by achieving critical mass and building up the OAPEN European Digital Library.
The project is the first of its kind and, if funded, is intended to start in September 2008.

For more information on OAPEN please visit www.oapen.com

Thanks to Jean Kempf on American Scientist Open Access Forum

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Adopts Open Access Policy!

Yesterday (Feb. 12, 2008), the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted an open access policy. This is the first university open access policy initiated by faculty!

For background, see Robert Darnton's article The Case for Open Access in the Harvard Crimson.

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

We are in the midst of change

The Journal of Electronic Publishing has just released a special issue devoted to scholarly communications. The article by Karla Hahn, ARL's Director of Scholarly Communications since 2005, Talk about Talking about New Models of Scholarly Communication, is interesting and well worth reading.

One of Karla's key points about the current environment: we are no longer just anticipating change - we are in the midst of it. Another important concept: there is an emerging consensus for a need for librarians to dialogue with scholars, on a one-on-one basis. We may be in the midst of change, but there is much need to talk about what the changes are and, most importantly, where we are going.

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

SPARC NIH Public Access Policy: Implementation Details, Links to Key Resources

SPARC has just published a list of NIH Public Access Policy Implementation Details, with links to key resources to assist libraries to help faculty comply with policy.

Canadian Institutes of Health Research Policy Now in Effect

The following announcement is from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research

(2008-02-04) On September 4, 2007, CIHR released its "Policy on Access to Research Outputs", which aims to improve access to research publications and biomolecular data. Under this new funding policy, recipients of CIHR grants awarded after January 1, 2008, must:

* ensure that all research papers generated from CIHR funded projects are freely accessible through the Publisher's website or an online repository within six months of publication;
* deposit bioinformatics, atomic, and molecular coordinate data into the appropriate public database (e.g., gene sequences deposited in GenBank) immediately upon publication of research results;
* retain original data sets for a minimum of five years (or longer if other policies apply); and
* acknowledge CIHR support by quoting the funding reference number in journal publications.

Currently, more than twenty research funding agencies around the world require supported research publications to be openly accessible. Most recently, the U.S. National Institutes of Health mandated open online access to its funded research through the National Library of Medicine's online archive, PubMed Central.

Rational
CIHR believes that greater access to research publications and data will promote the ability of researchers in Canada and aboard to use and build on the knowledge needed to address significant health challenges. Open access enables authors to reach a much broader audience, which has the potential to increase the impact of their research. In fact, evidence shows that open access publications are more often read and cited than closed access publications. From a Knowledge Translation perspective, this policy will support our desire to expedite awareness of and facilitate the use of research findings by policy makers, health care administrators, clinicians, and the public, by greatly increasing ease of access to research.

Adhering with the new policy - Open access publications
For journal publications, there are two ways to adhere with the policy:

1. Submit your manuscript to a journal that offers immediate open access (e.g., CMAJ, PLoS, BMC) or offers open access to the paper on its website within six months (e.g., NEJM).
2. Submit your manuscript to a journal that does not offer open access, but will permit you to archive the peer-reviewed manuscript in a central or institutional repository within 6 months of publication.

CIHR considers open access publishing fees to be an eligible grant expense.

The SHERPA/RoMEO database contains a searchable listing of journal publisher's copyright and self-archiving policies which will help researchers to determine journal's that adhere with CIHR policy.

Additional information and resources
CIHR has developed a suite of tools and resources that will help clarify this new policy and how it will affect grant recipients:

* CIHR Policy on Access to Research Outputs;
* Frequently asked questions;
* Flowchart for open access publications;
* Adhering with the CIHR Policy on Access to Research Outputs - Selected Journals.

For further information regarding this policy, please contact Geoff Hynes 613-952-8965, or e-mail: ghynes@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

Ian Graham, Ph.D.
Vice-President, Knowledge Translation

Hat tip to Peter Suber on Open Access News

Saturday, February 02, 2008

February 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

Peter Suber has just released the February 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

January has been a remarkable month for open access mandates, with 10 developments in 8 countries (not counting mandates in the works, such as the European University Association!).

Peter analyzes the NIH and ERC developments in some depth. He points out that more publishers should probably take on the task of archiving in PMC on behalf of authors; many make back issues freely available within the 12-month embargo at any rate, so this just makes sense. The NIH policy follows the dual deposit / release approach (deposit immediately, but set a delay on release if necessary). Peter's explanation of the benefits of this approach are well worth reading.