OA Librarian

U.S. Call to action: 2011 White House RFI on public access (deadline Jan. 2)

2011-11-17T21:49:00.001-08:00

U.S. OA Librarians and organizations elsewhere with OA policy experience, see this call to action fron the Alliance for Taxpayer Access: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/action_access/11-1117.shtml

September 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-09-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber just released the September 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Peter's description as posted to the SPARC OA Forum: Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, this issue reflects on the problem of access to dangerous knowledge. It also describes how I'll have to trim future issues to make time for a large new OA project at Harvard. The look-back sections reprint short excerpts from SOAN five and ten years ago this month.

August 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-08-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber just released the August 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. No feature article this time, this issue focuses on 5 and 10 years ago and the latest roundup.

New OA journal for us! Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

2011-07-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Issac Gilman for a pointer to a new OA Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication. So far Pacific University and California Polytechnic State University have put together a great editorial team; now let's do our part by helping this new journal out with some great content!

Open Access and Copyright - July 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-07-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

Open Access and Copyright is the feature article in Peter Suber's just-released July SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

E-LIS reaches 12,000 documents

2011-06-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

E-LIS, the subject repository for library and information science, passed the 12,000 document mark today (it's at 12,004 as I type). Congrats to E-LIS for reaching this level. While this is a fairly auspicious number, there's still loads of library and info. science-related content that could be added to E-LIS. So, to all OA Librarian readers, if you write and present in the subject area, I challenge you to add your material! It's easy to do, taking mere minutes!

Andrew

PS Disclosure: I am one of the Canadian editors for E-LIS.

June 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-06-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber just released the June 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: Seeking Custody - when you have permission for OA, but don't have a copy. Plus the usual monthly roundup.

Barbara Fister: 4 options for librarians

2011-05-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Barbara Fister has 4 suggested options for libraries to further OA publishing in Library Journal. The options are, in brief:

Start an open access publishing program with a local focus.
Mergers of libraries and university presses.
Redirect funding from subscriptions to paying author fees for open access (Fister does not think this is workable on a grand scale; note that I would disagree)
Build small and nimble coalitions among libraries with scholars who do get it

Andrew Waller winner of BMC OA Advocate of the Year award!

2011-05-06T09:10:00.000-07:00

BioMedCentral presented OA Librarian's own Andrew Waller with their OA Advocate of the Year award last night - congratulations, Andrew! Details at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/researchawards/previousawards#2010

Update May 9: here is another more direct link to the announcement

Text from science journalist Vivienne Parry: He is the Open Access Librarian in the Scholarly Communication Centre, part of the Libraries and Cultural Resources unit at the University of Calgary, Canada. Andrew is responsible for the Open Access Authors Fund, which has made possible over 170 articles for University of Calgary authors since its inception in 2008. This fund was the first of its kind in Canada. It is one of several programs in the University of Calgary’s outstanding open access suite. It includes an institutional repository; an expansive digitization program; OA journals and monographs in the University of Calgary Press. Andrew has regularly written on and spoken about open access over the last several years. He is one of the people behind the OA Librarian blog and is a Canadian editor for the open access repository for library and information science, E-LIS.

Comment: the University of Calgary's Open Access Authors Fund, led by Andrew, is just one of the initiatives that I hope Andrew will do more speaking and writing about in the near future. It is a pleasure to see this award go to someone who has frequently been a co-author, co-presenter, co-OA Librarian, and co-E-LIS member. Thanks for all that you do, Andrew!

May 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-05-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber has released the May 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Highlighted this month: Free Offline Access: A Primer on OA' (OA Prime)

April 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-04-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber just released the April 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month is open access as humanitarian aid, focused on efforts of publishers to provide open access generally to selected works in response to this month's massive earthquake in Japan. Another new feature is a look back to SOAN 5 and 10 years ago.

New interface for DOAJ

2011-03-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has announced a new interface, which can be seen at www.doaj.org. There is a note about the new interface here.

Also, in a posting to the American Science Open Access Forum, Anna-Lena Johansson from DOAJ notes:

"Now there are more than 6300 journals from more than 110 countries in more than 50 languages in the DOAJ. More than 2500 journals are providing metadata on article level, which means that more than 500,000 articles are searchable from DOAJ."

U.S. Urgent Action Alert: Act by April 14 to expand NIH mandate

2011-03-27T14:51:00.001-07:00

Details at SPARC

College and Research Libraries goes open access!

2011-03-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

ACRL's College and Research Libraries is going open access - details here! Kudos to ACRL!

Librarians Against DRM shareable icons

2011-03-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Free reusable icons - librarians / authors against DRM:
http://readersbillofrights.info/

thanks to Alvin Schrader

March 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-03-02T08:05:00.001-08:00

Peter Suber has just released the March 2011 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: 6 recent watershed events for OA. So far, love the blurb from an upcoming Publishers Association / Association of Learned and Scholarly Publishers meeting which starts: Open access is here to stay, and has the support of our key partners

Core values of librarianshp

2011-02-05T15:34:00.001-08:00

Thanks to the American Library Association for articulating these 11 Core Values of Librarianship. I'm repeating the full list here - for convenience as I've had trouble finding these on the ALA website before - and also because they are worth repeating. This is what librarianship is all about!

The foundation of modern librarianship rests on an essential set of core values, which define, inform, and guide all professional practice. These values reflect the history and ongoing development of the profession and have been advanced, expanded, and refined by numerous policy statements of the American Library Association. Among these are:

Access
Confidentiality/Privacy
Democracy
Diversity
Education and Lifelong Learning
Intellectual Freedom
Preservation
The Public Good
Professionalism
Service
Social Responsibility

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to express our values more eloquently than ALA already has in the Freedom to Read statement, the Library Bill of Rights, the ALA Mission Statement, Libraries: an American Value and other documents. These policies have been carefully thought out, articulated, debated, and approved by the ALA Council. They are interpreted, revised, or expanded when necessary. Over time, the values embodied in these statements have been embraced by the majority of librarians as the foundations of their practice. Adopted, 2004.

Thanks to Al Kagan for the pointer.

February 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-02-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

Peter Suber just released the February 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Highlighted this month is the US Department of Labor mandate for Open Educational Resources (OER) and Word Contest #2, coming up with terminology for the phrase to "provide open access to."

Science Online 2011 tweeting and streaming

2011-01-02T13:36:00.000-08:00

If you can't make it to the Jan. 13-15 Science Online meeting, note that there will be live tweeting and streaming - see http://scienceonline2011.com/ and http://www.science3point0.com/scio11/ (thanks to Graham Steel).

Polish version of 2010 Dramatic Growth of Open Access

2011-01-02T13:16:00.001-08:00

The 2010 Dramatic Growth of Open Access is now available in Polish here and here - many thanks to E-LIS Editor Bożena Bednarek-Michalska. The English version can be found here.

December 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2011-01-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

Peter Suber just released the December 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month is an in-depth look at open access in 2010 - a busy year for OA!

2010 Dramatic Growth of Open Access

2011-01-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

The 2010 Dramatic Growth of Open Access is now available.

Excerpt:

2010 was the strongest year for open access growth so far. In 2010, 1,401 journals were added to DOAJ for a total of 5,936 journals. The Electronic Journals Library now records over 27,000 journals that can be read free of charge; over 3,500 were added in 2010. 1,037 journals actively participate in PubMedCentral, an increase of 313 over the past year, and more than half of these journals contribute all articles as open access. PMC now provides access to over 3.2 million free articles, an increase of over 300,000 this year. OpenDOAR lists 1,817 repositories, having added 257 this year. A Scientific Commons search encompasses 38 million items, an increase of over 6 million since last year. There are 261 open access mandate policies, an increase of 83 this year.

Happy New Year to the Open Access movement!

Heather Morrison

ELPUB 2011: Call for submissions

2010-12-23T15:12:00.001-08:00

The deadline for proposals for the ELPUB 2011 conference, the 15th International Conference on Electronic Publishing to be held July 11-15, Istanbul, Turkey, is coming up on January 14. The theme for this year's conference is Digital Publishing and Mobile Technologies.

Open Access Week dates: 2011 - 2015

2010-12-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

Open Access Week 2011 will take place all over the world between October 24 and 30. In future, Open Access Week will be the last *full* week of October:

2011: Oct 24 - 30
2012: Oct 22 - 28
2013: Oct 21 - 27
2014: Oct 20 - 26
2015: Oct 19 - 25

Details on the program for 2011 will be announced in the New Year.

Thanks to:

Jennifer McLennan
Program Director, Open Access Week

December 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-12-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

Peter Suber has just released the December 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Highlights: 11th hour for SCOAP3 and The US Elections and Open Access.

November 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-11-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber just released the November 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Highlighted this month: politically selective calls for open access.

http://www.arl.org/news/pr/iscwebinar-04oct10.shtml

2010-10-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

Register by Nov. 10 for next (and last) ARL ACRL Institute for Scholarly Communication Webinar with Joyce Ogburn & Heather Morrison on the topic, The Future is Now!

Simon Fraser University joins the Compact on Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE)

2010-10-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

SFU is the latest signatory to the Compact on Open Access Publishing Equity, COPE.

Happy Open Access Week!

2010-10-15T21:49:00.001-07:00

Happy Open Access Week from and to all OA Librarians! Still scrambling to finalize plans? Don't forget to check out the OA Week Ning, or check the Open Access Directory page to see what others or doing - or add a link to your own event!

SPARC Open Access Week Webcast with Nobel prize winner

2010-10-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

Free webcast, to schedule with your OA Week activities at your convenience, will be available under embargo as of October 14 - for details, see Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

October 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-10-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber just released the October 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter (Peter's 150th). Highlighted this month: Peter's own experiences with self-archiving.

OASPA 2010 Videos Available

2010-09-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

Videos of the presentations at the 2nd annual conference of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers' Association are now available.

Joint Open Letter to International Publishers

2010-09-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

Open letter from the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences to STM publishers regarding year-over-year double-digit price increases, completing ignoring the current status of China as a developing country.

September 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-09-02T10:35:00.001-07:00

Peter Suber just released the September 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Highlight this month: Discovery, rediscovery, and open access. Part 2.

Dorothea Salo's call for open discourse

2010-08-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

recommended reading on the Book of Trogool

Discovery, rediscovery, and open access

2010-08-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber has just released the August 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: discovery, rediscovery, and open access. Starts with: In 1979, William Garvey made a remarkable claim: " ... in some disciplines, it is easier to repeat an experiment than it is to determine that the experiment has already been done."

U.N. support for open access

2010-07-23T17:02:00.001-07:00

Renata's Digtial Library Review

2010-07-08T15:57:00.003-07:00

New blog, open access to reviews of open access resources - what a good idea!

July 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-07-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber just released the July 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: California vs. Nature.

Registration open for November SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting

2010-06-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Changing Role of Libraries: Journal Hosting and Support (ARL ACRL Scholarly Communication Institute)

2010-06-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

There is still time to register for the June 15th session of the ARL ACRL Scholarly Communication Institute webinar series, Changing Role of Libraries: Journal Hosting and Support. Speakers Caroline Sutton, David Solomon, Maria Bonn and Catherine Mitchell will address topics of relevance to libraries at all stages in this new area of service, from those actively engaged in this service area, to those developing or considering this service area. Each session provides opportunities to engage in discussion with speakers and with other participants. [Disclosure: Julie Garrison & I are co-coordinating this series].

June 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-06-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber has just released the June 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: unanimous faculty OA votes.

Open Access Policies in Europe: David Prosser article

2010-05-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Enabling Open Scholarship has just released David Prosser's Open Access Policies in Europe. This succinct overview by one of open access' most noteworthy champions is a must-read for anyone involved in OA policy development or advocacy.

Canadian action item: help vote up OA to Canadian Research in Canada's Digital Economy Consultation

2010-05-15T18:43:00.000-07:00

Please register for Canada's Digital Economy Consultation and vote for Open Access to Canadian Research under Canada's Digital Content. Currently OA is at 8 votes, just 2 behind the lead suggestion in this section of the Ideas Forum.

OA-related items from the Alberta Library Conference

2010-05-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

Two OA-related items came out of the Alberta Library Conference (ALC) that was held in Jasper, AB, April 29-May 2, 2010 (http://www.albertalibraryconference.com/)

First, at the AGM, the Library Association of Alberta (LAA) voted to investigate setting up an OA policy for the organization. This would follow what other Canadian library associations, such as the British Columbia Library Association (BCLA) and the Canadian Library Association (CLA), have done. In addition, LAA has already taken actions in terms of OA e.g. the LAA newsletter, the Letter of the LAA, is available as a delayed OA publication (http://www.laa.ca/page/letter%20of%20the%20laa%20archives.aspx).

(Disclosure: I moved the motion to investigate setting up an OA Policy.)

Second, the theme for ALC 2011 was announced and it includes an OA component. The theme will be "Open doors, open minds, open access".

Hurray for DOAJ! Over 5,000 journals

2010-05-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

The DOAJ has just announced a series of milestones, including the milestone of exceeding 5,000 journals!

Kudos to DOAJ. As I point out over on the Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, this is more than 20% of the world's scholarly journals that are now fully open access.

This is a conservative estimate - from the OA community, what I hear is a little frustration with the amount of time it takes to get a journal vetted and included in DOAJ. If you'd like to help DOAJ achieve better service - consider joining as a member or sponsor.

FRPAA introduced in the US House of Representatives (May 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter)

2010-05-02T10:53:00.001-07:00

Peter Suber just released the May 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month is concise analysis of the introduction of FRPAA and what you can do to help.

Who will preserve open access news?

2010-04-30T16:38:00.001-07:00

Peter Suber just posted the last post to Open Access News. Closure of the blog is partly for technical reasons (the choice was either to close or migrate), and partly because the real news nowadays is posted at the Open Access Tracking Project.

Open Access News will remain as it is and where it is, for now, thanks to Google. But what about the long term? Shouldn't someone be preserving this monumental resource, and, my fellow librarians, shouldn't this someone be one of us?

Many thanks to Peter Suber and to sponsors Open Society Institute, SPARC, and the Wellcome Trust.

Open Access Week declared for October 18 - 24, 2010

2010-04-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

David Wiley's letter of support for FRPAA

2010-04-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

David Wiley has posted his own letter of support to his representative for FRPAA. An excellent example if people are looking for ideas on how to participate effectively.

Campus open access publishing funds: SPARC resources and webcast

2010-04-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

SPARC has issued a set of resources on Campus Open Access Publishing Funds, and is hosting a free webinar on May 5th with SPARC Consultant Greg Tannenbaum. Note that OA Library Andrew Waller is among the experts listed!

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine tutorial on blip TV

2010-04-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) tutorial now available on blip TV, thanks to OA Librarian Richard Baer.

Congress takes another stride toward public access to research -- Federal Research Public Access Act introduced in the House of Representatives

2010-04-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

ALLIANCE FOR TAXPAYER ACCESS www.taxpayeraccess.org For immediate release April 15, 2010 For more information, contact Jennifer McLennan (202) 296-2296 ext. 121 jennifer [at] arl [dot] org Congress takes another stride toward public access to research Federal Research Public Access Act introduced in the House of Representatives Washington, DC – Fueling the growing momentum toward openness, transparency, and accessibility to publicly funded information, the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2010 (FRPAA) has been introduced today in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and a bi-partisan host of co-sponsors. The proposed bill would build on the success of the first U.S. mandate for public access to the published results of publicly funded research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and require federal agencies with annual extramural research budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with online access to research manuscripts stemming from funded research no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. “Free and open access to scientific literature and data are the underpinnings of discovery in the digital age,” said Stephen Friend MD PhD, President and Co-Founder of Sage Bionetworks. “Full collaboration among researchers is essential, and we have the power now to communicate, collaborate, and innovate in ways that were previously unimaginable. I applaud the sponsors of the Federal Research Public Access Act for their commitment to ensuring the kind of access scientists need to make progress on improved disease treatments and diagnostics in the digital world.” Like the Senate bill introduced in 2009 by Senators Lieberman (I-CT) and Cornyn (R-TX), H.R. 5037 would unlock unclassified research funded by agencies including: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation. H.R. 5037 follows closely on the heels of a recent expression of interest in public access policies from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which issued a request for public comment on mechanisms that would leverage federal investments in scientific research and increase access to information that promises to stimulate scientific and technological innovation and competitiveness. “This bill recognizes the urgent need – and opportunity – to use digital technology to increase the pace of innovation,” added Elliot Schwartz, Vice President for Economic Studies at the Committee for Economic Development. “The bill is a crucial, welcome move toward advancing research through openness and avoiding making the taxpayer pay twice for taxpayer-funded research… it is good public policy.” The introduction of H.R. 5037 was also welcomed by leaders in the higher education community, who recognize this legislation helps to ensure the United States is positioned to continue to fuel education and innovation. "Conducting critical research that enriches and improves lives has always been a key mission of universities in this country, including Ohio State," said E. Gordon Gee, president of The Ohio State University. "Disseminating the knowledge gained from that research is an equally important part of our institutions' public purpose. The Federal Research Public Access Act will further spread new knowledge, and it has my full support." “Advancing research is at the core of the mission of higher education, and broadening access to the scholarly record is a critical step in helping research to advance to its fullest potential,” added Karen Hanson, Provost and Executive Vice President, Indiana University. “The current system for exchanging the results of research is deeply flawed, and major changes – like this bill – are required. I welcome the introduction of the Federal Research Public Access Act.” The Alliance for Taxpayer Access thanks and congratulates Representative Doyle and all of the bill’s co-sponsors for championing this pivotal legislation, and calls on organizations and individuals to write in support of the bill through the Web site at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org. For more information about the Federal Research Public Access Act and the broad coalition that supports its passage, visit http://www.taxpayeraccess.org. ### The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient, academic, research, and publishing organizations that supports open public access to the results of federally funded research. The Alliance was formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles stemming from taxpayer-funded research become fully accessible and available online at no extra cost to the American public. Details on the ATA may be found at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.

WorldCat rights and responsibilities for the OCLC cooperative

2010-04-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

OCLC has released the next draft of their WorldCat rights and responsibilities for the OCLC cooperative.

My comments can be found on The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics. In brief, my suggestion is that the OCLC Record Use Policy Council should scrap this draft, and begin fresh with a vision of how library bibliographic records should be shared for a world with an internet as free and open as it can be. Library catalogue records should be freely accessible and part of a robust and growing public domain. OCLC should refrain from using OCLC or WorldCat branding on records which are, if anything, someone else's creative work. If anyone should sign a catalogue record, it should be the cataloguer - not OCLC.

Please read the draft policy and contribute your own comments.

Open Access Week: join!

2010-04-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) 2nd annual conference: registration now open

2010-04-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

OA journals and TOC RSS feeds

2010-04-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting blog post from the other day, dealing with OA journals and table of contents feeds:

http://tinyurl.com/yahf7ra

April 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-04-02T12:33:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber just released the April 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Highlighted this month: a brief poetic thought for spring on the winter coat and OA; results of Peter's quest for a verb to describe making something OA; and the monthly roundup.

In the interests of intellectual freedom

2010-03-14T21:10:00.001-07:00

According to Stevan Harnad, his comments posted to Phil Davis' blog have not appeared. While blog owners have every right to moderate comments (or not allow comments, as is the policy at OA Librarian), in this case Harnad is an academic expert, a Canada Research Chair, attempting to quite appropriately respond to Phil Davis' critique of his work. If commenting is permitted, Harnad's comments should be commented IN, not out. The primary purpose of this post is to assist with intellectual freedom, a topic that Phil Davis should be familiar with as a librarian.

For the record, while my expertise is not at Harnad's level on this topic, I have read Davis' 2008 study and Alma Swan's synopsis, and I concur with Harnad. I also have posted comments to Phil Davis' blog, on topics on which I have considerable expertise, and they have not appeared.

Harnad's comments, from liblicense:

Phil,

Thanks for the helpful feedback.

I'm afraid you're mistaken about meta-analysis. It can be a
perfectly appropriate statistical technique for analyzing a large
number of studies, with positive and negative outcomes, varying
in methodological rigor, sample size and effect size. It is a way
of estimating whether or not there is a significant underlying
effect.

I think you may be inadvertently mixing up the criteria for (1)
eligibility and comparability for a meta-analysis with the
criteria for (2) a clinical drug trial (for which there rightly
tends to be an insistence on randomized control trials in
biomedical research).

Now I would again like to take the opportunity of receiving this
helpful feedback from you to remind you about some feedback I
have given you repeatedly http://bit.ly/dkieVi on your own 2008
study -- the randomized control trial that you suggest has been
the only methodologically sound test of the OA Advantage so far:

You forgot to do a self-selection control condition. That would
be rather like doing a randomized control trial on a drug - to
show that the nonrandom control trials that have reported a
positive benefit for that drug were really just self-selection
artifacts -- but neglecting to include a replication of the
self-selection artifact in your own sample, as a control.

For, you see, if your own sample was too small and/or too brief
(e.g., you didn't administer the drug for as long an interval, or
to as many patients, as the nonrandom studies reporting the
positive effects had done), then your own null effect with a
randomized trial would be just that: a null effect, not a
demonstration that randomizing eliminates the nonrandomized drug
effect. (This is the kind of methodological weakness, for
example, that multiple studies can be weighted for, in a
meta-analysis of positive, negative and null effects.)

[I am responding to your public feedback here, on the liblicense
and SERIALST lists, but not also on your SSP Blog, where you
likewise publicly posted this same feedback (along with other,
rather shriller remarks) http://j.mp/d91Jk2 because I am assuming
that you will again decline to post my response on your blog, as
you did the previous time that you publicly posted your feedback
on my work both there http://bit.ly/8LK57u and elsewhere -
refusing my response on your blog on the grounds that it had
already been publicly posted elsewhere!...]

- Stevan Harnad

PS The idea of doing a meta-analysis came from me, not from Dr.
Swan.

U.S. action alert: quick web vote for public access comments

2010-03-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

New SPARC release: Guide to exloring campus-based OA funds

2010-03-04T07:22:00.000-08:00

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has released a website that is designed to act as a guide for those institutions who wish to explore campus-based OA funds. The site can be found at http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/funds/index.shtml and includes a guide to design and implementation of OA funds, a FAQ, implementation tools, case studies, and a "living" document that describes OA funds in action.

Disclosure: I manage one of the funds that is discussed in the guide (the Open Access Authors Fund at the Univeristy of Calgary) and my input was solicited for this project.

March SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-03-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

Peter Suber just released the March 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: Open Access, Markets and Mission.

OpenAIRE Press Release

2010-02-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

European Countries join forces to realize the EC Open Access pilot: OpenAIRE

OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe), a three-years project funded under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission, has now taken up its work to implement Open Access on a pan-European scale. This ambitious effort unites 38 partners from 27 European countries.

The main goal of OpenAIRE is to support the Open Access pilot, launched by the European Commission in August 2008. This Open Access pilot, which covers about 20% of the FP7 budget, commits researchers from 7 thematic areas (Health, Energy, Environment, Information & Communication Technology, Research Infrastructures, Socio-economic sciences & Humanities and Science in Society) to deposit their research publications in an institutional or disciplinary Open Access repository, to be made available worldwide in full text. OpenAIRE will establish underlying structures for researchers to support them in complying with the pilot through European Helpdesk System, build an OpenAIRE portal and e-Infrastructure for the repository networks and explore scientific data management services together with 5 disciplinary communities.

“The implementation of a Europe wide infrastructure for Open Access is a milestone for the success of Open Access,” says Dr. Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator of OpenAIRE and Director of Göttingen State and University Library, Germany. “The project consortium will work closely together with the European Commission, the ERC and many other stakeholders (such as SPARC Europe, LIBER, EUA) to achieve the broadest possible impact.”

The project consortium incorporates the best available expertise for Open Access & repository infrastructures in Europe and will establish a distributed support structure based on a network of liaison offices covering all European Union member states plus Norway. Consortium partners have been identified in each country, or in the case of Luxembourg, have pledged their support for the development and implementation of strategies and services for Open Access, that have gained acceptance in the international community since 2003, the launch of the Berlin Declaration.

[thanks to Peter Suber at the Open Access Tracking Project]

New Open Access Fund at SFU Library

2010-02-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

Excerpt:

At its January 2010 meeting, the Senate Library Committee adopted sweeping recommendations that will make SFU one of only three Canadian universities to embrace Open Access (OA) publishing. “We’re going to put our money where our mouth is,” says Bird. OA Journals are scholarly peer-reviewed journals freely available on the web without subscription fees, but they are often supported through Article Processing Charges (APCs) levied to authors. Fees range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per accepted paper. Prominent examples are BioMed Central, Public Library of Science, and Hindawi.

(Thanks to Gwen Bird).

Note also that there is a link to the full SFU OA Strategy document at the bottom of this page.

Kudos to Gwen Bird & SFU Library!

Global Knowledge Exchange Network launched

2010-02-13T18:45:00.000-08:00

The Global Knowledge Exchange Network has just launched - here is a description, from the About page:

The Global Knowledge Exchange Network (GKEN) is a community for scholars and practitioners to share and explore new ideas and emerging trends related to scholarly research or everyday practice. More specifically, the community is devoted to understanding the changing role of information –its creation, management, dissemination and use– in scholarly research, higher education and business practice.

The project is sponsored jointly by the Harvard Business School Knowledge and Library Services and the Copenhagen Business School Library. The GKEN Founding Team includes Mary Lee Kennedy and Gosia Stergios (Harvard Business School), and René Steffensen and Leif Hansen (Copenhagen Business School).

Science Commons Symposium: February 20, Redmond Washington

2010-02-04T16:57:00.001-08:00

Lineup looks very interesting!

SPARC webcast: Library-press partnerships

2010-02-03T20:36:00.000-08:00

Library-press partnerships in action: The new University of California Publishing Services
A SPARC Webcast
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
1:00 – 2:00PM EST

Free, but registration required.

ARL ACRL Scholarly Communication Institute Webinar Series

2010-02-02T12:52:00.001-08:00

Registration is now open for Strengthening Programs through Collaboration, the ARL ACRL Scholarly Communication Institute Webinar Series.

[Disclosure: Julie Garrison & I are co-coordinators of this series, and fellow OA Librarian Andrew Waller is among the confirmed speakers].

February 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2010-02-02T12:11:00.001-08:00

Peter Suber has just released the February 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: analogies between the politics of open access and the politics of clean energy.

Mark your calendars: Open Access Week October 18-24, 2010

2010-02-02T12:07:00.000-08:00

Harvard response to OSTP consultation on open access

2010-01-25T17:38:00.000-08:00

Well said!!!

University of Calgary Students' Union passes resolution to support OA

2010-01-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

On November 23, 2009, the Students' Academic Assembly (SAA) at the University of Calgary passed a resolution supporting Open Access. Here is the text of the resolution:

WHEREAS Open Access is defined as free, unrestricted access to high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship over the Internet[1],

WHEREAS the SU recognizes that the development of scholarly research is funded by the public through government grants and student tuition,

WHEREAS the SU believes that Open Access improves the educational experience for students,

WHEREAS the SU believes that all students should have access to full scholarly records as they are pursuing their education regardless of an institution’s ability to afford scholarly research subscriptions,

WHEREAS the SU believes open access allows for researchers to maximize the impact of their research through increased visibility in a timely manner,

WHEREAS the SU supports and is encouraged by the initiatives and funding the University of Calgary Library and Cultural Resources have dedicated to Open Access[2],

BE IT RESOLVED THAT the SU calls upon each University of Calgary faculty and researcher to support Open Access initiatives, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the SU continue to advocate for Open Access in all of its advocacy initiatives[3]

Moved: M. Martin
Seconded: D. Pagan

[1] “Student Statement on the Right to Research,” Available: www.righttoresearch.org
Accessed: November 18, 2009.
[2] Initiatives as of October 2009 have included the $100,000 Open Access Authors Fund, being an active partner in the national Synergies project that stores and provides open access to research in Canada, the organization of Open Access Week and expanding the University of Calgary Press to include open access publishing, e-books and print on demand.
[3] Examples would include advocacy at the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS), Canadian Roundtable of Academic Materials (CRAM) and SPARC.

This resolution came in part out of the OA Week activities at the University of Calgary, in which the University of Calgary Students' Union (SU) was very active. This policy is now an official lobbying priority for the SU.

The SAA also endorsed SPARC's Student Statement on the Right to Research.

Thanks to Meg Martin for all the information.

Disclosure: I work in Libraries and Cultural Resources at the University of Calgary.

Public comments on OSTP consultation due Jan. 21

2010-01-19T21:27:00.000-08:00

From Open Access News last Friday:

The public comment period on the Obama administration's consultation on OA for federally-funded research expires this Wednesday. The original deadline was January 7, but was extended until January 21.

If you haven't already submitted a comment, use your weekend to write one and send it off no later than Wednesday. You can submit your comment by email or through the OSTP blog.

All signs suggest that the Obama administration is willing to generalize the NIH policy in some form and extend it across the federal government. Show your support for this move! You know that opponents are showing their opposition.

And please spread the word to others who might write comments.

January 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter, or 2009 - Open Access Year Worldwide?

2010-01-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

Peter Suber just released the January 2010 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: Open Access in 2009: "2009 was Open Access Year in the Netherlands, but it might have been Open Access Year worldwide..."

Laura Brigg's OA Concept Map

2009-12-16T22:27:00.000-08:00

Cool OA concept map. Thanks, Laura!

Version 77, Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

2009-12-14T18:20:00.000-08:00

Charles Bailey has just released Version 77 of his Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography.

E-LIS: Over 10,000 documents

2009-12-13T12:17:00.000-08:00

E-LIS now contains over 10,000 documents. As of 1:15 pm MST, December 13, 2009, the E-LIS homepage advertises that the repository now has "more than 10,021" items in the archive. The 5-digit mark is a notable line to cross; I've been checking in with the site now and again to see when E-LIS got to this point. Congrats to E-LIS and all who have deposited in this OAR.

Disclosure: I am part of the Canadian editorial team for E-LIS

December 11, 2009 Dramatic Growth of Open Access

2009-12-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

I just published the December 11, 2009 early year-end edition of the Dramatic Growth of Open Access.

U.S. OA Action Alert

2009-12-09T16:50:00.000-08:00

From Peter Suber on Open Access News:

The Obama administration wants OA for federally-funded research

The Obama administration is calling for public comments on ways to enhance access to federally-funded research. From today's announcement:

With this notice, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) within the Executive Office of the President, requests input from the community regarding enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from research funded by Federal science and technology agencies. This RFI [Request for Information] will be active from December 10, 2009 to January 7, 2010. Respondents are invited to respond online via the Public Access Policy Forum...or may submit responses via electronic mail. Responses will be re-posted on the online forum. Instructions and a timetable for daily blog topics during this period are described at [the White House Open Government Initiative web site]....

[T]he Administration is dedicated to maximizing the return on Federal investments made in R&D. Consistent with this policy, the Administration is exploring ways to leverage Federal investments to increase access to information that promises to stimulate scientific and technological innovation and competitiveness. The results of government-funded research can take many forms, including data sets, technical reports, and peer-reviewed scholarly publications, among others. This RFI focuses on approaches that would enhance the public's access to scholarly publications resulting from research conducted by employees of a Federal agency or from research funded by a Federal agency....

The Executive Branch is considering ways to enhance public access to peer reviewed papers arising from all federal science and technology agencies. One potential model, implemented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)...requires that all investigators funded by the NIH submit an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscript upon acceptance for publication no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. Articles collected under the NIH Public Access Policy are archived in PubMed Central and linked to related scientific information contained in other NIH databases....

The NIH model has a variety of features that can be evaluated, and there are other ways to offer the public enhanced access to peer- reviewed scholarly publications. The best models may [be] influenced by agency mission, the culture and rate of scientific development of the discipline, funding to develop archival capabilities, and research funding mechanisms....

Input is welcome on any aspect of expanding public access to peer reviewed publications arising from federal research. Questions that individuals may wish to address include, but are not limited to, the following (please respond to questions individually)....[PS: Here omitting the nine questions; but anyone submitting a comment should read and address them.]

Comments (by Peter Suber)

This is big. We already have important momentum in Congress for FRPAA. The question here is about separate action from the White House. What OA policies should President Obama direct funding agencies to adopt? This is the first major opening to supplement legislative action with executive action to advance public access to publicly-funded research. It's also the first explicit sign that President Obama supports the OA policy at the NIH and wants something similar at other federal agencies.
Don't forget that FRPAA has to stand in line behind healthcare reform, financial regulation, and climate change. This is the perfect time to open a new front from the executive branch. Also don't forget that the federal funding agencies belong to the executive branch and are subject to executive order.
Comments are due January 7. Please write one and spread the word, not necessarily in that order. As far as I can tell, comments from non-citizens addressing the nine questions are as welcome as comments from US citizens.
You can be sure that the publishing lobby will be writing comments. It's vital that the research community be heard as well, loud and clear.

University of Ottawa

2009-12-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

This morning, the University of Ottawa announced a comprehensive Open Access program, including an authors fund, a research to support research on OA, a fund to support the creation of digital materials, and support for the U of O Press to produce a collection of OA monographs. The University of Ottawa has also joined the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE).

The announcement can be found here, with links leading to the components of the OA program.

Congratulations to everyone at the University of Ottawa (especially Tony Horava for sending me the news right away) for putting together a broad program in a very coherent manner.

December 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2009-12-02T12:58:00.000-08:00

Peter Suber just released the December 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month: implications of the Google Books settlement for open access.

OA Librarian Kumiko Vezina featured in Concordia Journal

2009-11-28T17:32:00.000-08:00

OA Librarian Kumiko Vezina is among those featured in an article in Concordia Journal celebrating the launch of Concordia's institutional repository Spectrum.

U.S. House Science committee considering OA -in secret

2009-11-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

According to Gavin Baker on Open Access News, a U.S. House Science Committee is considering OA - in secret.

Why would a country that has seen lots of public discussion on this topic over the past few years suddenly decide on secret discussions? This doesn't exactly sound like democracy, does it?

Peter Suber's Knowledge as a Public Good

2009-11-02T22:27:00.001-08:00

Peter Suber's latest article, , Knowledge as a Public Good, has just been released as the feature article of the November 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

This article explains in depth why knowledge makes sense as a public good, and the happy coincidence that this is the month when Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for physics. Ostrom is well-known for her writing on the commons.

Austrian Science Fund: more good news for OA funding

2009-10-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Dr. Falk Reckling of the Austrian Science Fund for more good news on OA funding, extending the Austrian Science Fund pre-existing subsidy for publication charges to cover not only OA articles, but also peer-reviewed monographs and more.

October 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2009-10-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber has released the October 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this month is "10 challenges for open access journals", an expansion of his keynote talk at the first Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) conference held in September.

Dramatic Growth of Open Access: September 30, 2009

2009-09-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

The September 30, 2009 Dramatic Growth of Open Access is now available.

Abstract

This issue of The Dramatic Growth of Open Access features a few key quotable numbers to illustrate the growth and current extent of open access: more than 4,000 fully open access, peer reviewed journals in DOAJ, growing by 2 titles per day; close to 1,500 open access repositories listed in OpenDOAR, adding a new repository every business day; over 30 million free publications through Scientific Commons, growing by more than 20 thousands items per day; more than 20% of the world's medical literature is freely available 2 years after publication, and close to 10% is freely available immediately on publication; 1 more journal decides to submit all or most content to PMC every business day, and growth of open access journals in PMC is one new journal every other business day. The number of open access mandate policies is well over a hundred, and growing rapidly - but also likely understated. If you have a policy, please be sure to register with ROARMAP. This quarter saw some minor setbacks. Most notable (but still small) is a decrease in free content through Highwire Press.

Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity: a key step in transitioning to open access

2009-09-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

My comments on the Compact on Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE) are available on the Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics. In brief, I recommend that every library and university join. No immediate financial commitment is required, rather a commitment to develop models that provide equity for open access journals. Commitment entails recognition of the key role that libraries provide in supporting scholarly journals.

For links to COPE, see Andrew's post.

Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE)

2009-09-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

Five major US universities (Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Berkeley) have announced that they have joined together in a compact for Open Access publication. Each university commits "to the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication fees for open-access journal articles written by its faculty for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds". Other universities are being asked to sign on to the compact.

More details can be found here:

The announcement/press release: http://hul.harvard.edu/news/2009_0914_compact.html

The website for the compact: http://www.oacompact.org/

PLoS One wins ALPSP award for publishing innovation!

2009-09-10T22:39:00.000-07:00

PLoS One is the winner of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) award for publishing innovation! Congrats, PLoS One! (Thanks to Peter Binfield on twitter).

Free webcast of OASPA conference

2009-09-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

Free webcast of the first Open Access Scholarly Publishing Conference which begins September 16! Announcement from OASPA follows:

Dear All, I am pleased to announce that the 1st Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing will be broadcast live online at: http://www.river-valley.tv/ in order to broaden the reach of the conference beyond those participants who will be able to physically join us next week. Assuming that there are no technical hiccups, the webcast will begin on Monday September 14th at 12.30 pm Swedish time (11.30 am London/6.30 am in New York), and will continue according to the conference schedule, which can be found at: http://oaspa.org/coasp/sessions.php. If you check the website and find that the webcast is not working, I would encourage you to check back after a while to see if the conference has come back online. The parallel breakout sessions on the second day of the conference, as well as the social events in the evening, will not be broadcast. In addition to the live webcast, we will be recording both the video and audio of all of the conference presentations, which should be made available online within 1-2 weeks after the conference has ended. The recordings of the individual presentations will be posted as soon as they are ready at: http://www.river-valley.tv, and once all of
the presentations have been uploaded we will send out a final announcement. If you will be joining us in Lund, I look forward to seeing you next week. Otherwise, I hope you take the opportunity to check out the conference online.

Best Regards,
Paul Peters,
Chair 1st Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing

Caroline Sutton, PhD
Publisher Co-Action Publishing

Workshops on creating open access journals

2009-09-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

David Solomon and Caroline Sutton are looking for co-organizers to host their Workshop on Creating Open Access Journals. I attended the workshop held at the 2nd International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference. Highly recommended. This is very useful for the librarian interested in scholarly communication, or consider hosting a workshop for your faculty members.

Please join me for ALCTS Webinar September 23rd

2009-09-05T17:35:00.001-07:00

Please join me (Heather Morrison) on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EDT for the ALCTS webinar, Open Access: Key Trends

Description

While content recruitment at the local IR may seem slow and painful, from a global / historical perspective, the growth of open access in all its flavors is nothing short of phenomenal. The benefits of the IR for authors and for institutions will become more and more apparent in the near future. The chicken will emerge from the egg, and the IR will be seen as a great career choice. This session will provide an overview of the latest key trends in open access: why we need green as well as gold, both institutional and disciplinary repositories, and open access policies to fill the repositories. Institutional open access policies will be highlighted, introducing different types of policies, what makes for good policy, and approaches to open access policy development at the university.

For details and registration for this and other programs , see the ALCTS Webinar Series.

Kudos to Harvard and for FRPAA support letter and DASH!

2009-09-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

Kudos to Harvard University for a Letter supporting the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), to many thanks to the letter's signatories, Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman, Robert Darnton, and Stuart Shieber.

Congrats also to Harvard on launch of DASH, Harvard's institutional repository.

What an impressive and inspiring start to the semester!

September 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2009-09-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

Peter Suber has just released the September 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Featured this: BMJ's successful business model, supporting OA full-text through paid abridgements.

Copyright Hall of Janus? : Harvard University’s Two-Faced Approach to Copyrigh

2009-09-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

This post by Raizel Leibler of The Learned Fangirl, contrasting Harvard as excellent role model (with their leading-edge, faculty-led OA policies) and horrible role model (Harvard Business Review's IP is for me approach), may be of interest to librarians.

Comments for OA Librarian closed

2009-08-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

OA Librarian receives one or more comments every day. Unfortunately, over the last several months, the vast majority of comments have been spam; these have been increasing in number while "legit" comments have become few and far between. As a result of this, the decision has been made to close off the comment function for this blog. Apologies if this causes difficulties for anyone.

SPARC CALLS ON CAMPUSES TO COORDINATE OPEN-ACCESS POLICY EFFORTS

2009-08-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

SPARC has created a new resource centre - including a list of experts - to help librarians coordinate campus institutional open access policy developments.

August 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

2009-08-02T10:38:00.001-07:00

Peter Suber just released the August 2009 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at the recently re-introduced U.S. Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA).

Campus Outreach to Scholarly Society Leaders, Editors, and Members: new ARL resource

2009-07-16T20:50:00.000-07:00