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.

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