Saturday, August 30, 2008

Knowledge Exchange: Licensing and Open Access Exchange across borders

Knowledge Exchange combines national initiatives across four countries: Denmark, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands - to support multi-national licensing and support for open access initiatives.

Excerpt from About Knowledge Exchange:
Vision and goals
The agreed vision for Knowledge Exchange is:

To make a layer of scholarly and scientific content openly available on the Internet.

The goals that have been set to achieve that vision include:
* Building an integrated repository infrastructure
* Exploring new developments in the future of publishing
* Facilitating integrated management services within education and research institutions
* Supporting the European digital libraries agenda.

Looks an initiative to watch!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Two More OA Mandates

Two more OA mandates have been announced this week, by the European Commission for 20% of its research budget, and Ireland's Higher Education Authority.

Please follow the links above to Peter Suber's posts for details, comments and related links.

Monday, August 18, 2008

RSS Feed Aggregator About Open Access

Vedran Vucic has created an RSS Feed Aggregator for blogs, websites etc. on open access.

Thanks, Vedran!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

ARL Releases Publisher-Author Agreements and the NIH Public Access Policy

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has just announced release of a new study on publisher/author agreements and the NIH Public Access Policy, by Ben Grillot.

Friday, August 15, 2008

IFLA award for OA Librarian pioneer

IFLA has recognized librarian and open access pioneer Rima Kupryte. Rima was among the original signatories to the Budapest Open Access Initiative

Excerpt from the IFLA Press Release:

Rima Kupryte, Director of Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL.net) was honoured by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) at the 74th World Library and Information Congress in Quebec, Canada. The IFLA Medal is one of the highest professional accolades and is awarded to an individual for their distinguished contribution to international librarianship.

Rima Kupryte received the award in recognition of her groundbreaking work with the Open Society Institute (OSI) and eIFL.net in sharing information at a global level. “IFLA applauds the outstanding commitment of Rima in promoting international cooperation throughout her professional career”, said Claudia Lux, IFLA President. “We are delighted to bestow this honour for her dedication in expanding access to knowledge internationally through libraries”.

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Gratis and libre open access

Peter Suber, in the August 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter just released, has found an elegant solution to the emerging need for definitions to clarify the two basic concepts of open access, free as in free to read and free as in free for use. The distinction between gratis and libre mirrors a similar distinction in open source software. While the terms may be unfamiliar, this could be an advantage, as there would not be conflicts with preexisting uses of words.

This is an important, and useful, distinction. There is much discussion about gratis open access, as this is often the focus of open access policies.

Libre access, or freedom for use, is a very important concept. It is a reflection of the maturity of the open access movement that this distinction needed to be made, from my perspective. Now that we have 50 open access mandates with more coming, and a scholarly communications system well on the way to transition, it is time to be talking about libre access.

The Libre concept, to me, is very similar to what we librarians have been talking about for years even with subscription resources. Even when we pay, we may or may not be able to make certain uses of material, from printing and downloading to interlibrary loans. Creative commons licensed material is beginning to show up in our subscription resources; so far, this is likely only occasional, but this is the tip of the iceberg.

Friday, August 01, 2008

Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Advises Copyright Retention

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has issued an Intellectual Property Advisory, advising scholars to retain their copyright, and providing advice as to how, including use of the SPARC Canadian Authors Addendum!

Excerpt (Conclusion)

Journals require only your permission to publish an article, not a wholesale transfer
of the full copyright interest. To promote scholarly communication, autonomy, integrity
and academic freedom, and education and research activities more generally, it is
important for academic staff to retain copyright in their journal articles.

Thanks to Paul Jones, CAUT and Kenneth D. Gariepy, University of Alberta.