E-LIS reaches 4,000 eprints milestone

Rome, 2006-08-01

E-LIS, the international archive for Library and Information Science (LIS) eprints at http://eprints.rclis.org, has reached the milestone of over 4000 eprints stored. The news was brought by the coordinator of E-LIS, Imma Subirats Coll. Speaking from Rome (Italy), Imma congratulated the international team of 63 national editors from 45 countries who work to fill the archive and maintains its metadata. "They continue to do a wonderful job." she said.

In Padua (Italy), E-LIS founder Antonella De Robbio added "We are very grateful to the CILEA consortium for maintaining the server for us. Their operations have been very reliable. I am sure that their pioneering work will be acknowledged by LIS history."

Speaking in Novosibirsk (Russia), Thomas Krichel, a volunteer for E-LIS, noted "There can be no doubt that E-LIS is becoming the subject-based archive of choice for the LIS community. Our operation is technically robust, and there is great deal of work going on to cater for the metadata associated with the papers. But E-LIS can not and will not rest on its laurels. It is our hope to be working more closely with the organizers of LIS conferences, such as we have done with the ASIS&T and Collnet meetings."

In Philadelphia, (USA), the national editor for the USA, Norm Medeiros, added "Before uploading the papers from last year's American Society for Information Science and Technology annual meeting, we solicited permission from each corresponding author. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Most authors gave enthusiastic approval at the prospect of having their papers on E-LIS. The ASIS&T papers represent an important and lasting collection that E-LIS is proud to host."

Speaking in Vancouver (Canada), Heather Morrison, the editor for Canada and a well-respected open access campaigner, said "This type of pro-active action sets the E-LIS team apart."

In Mumbai, (India), V. L. Kalyane, the editor for India and member of the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Information, Library & Society, simply said "Congradulations".

Thanks to Thomas Krichel for this press release.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Consumer Groups Support Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006

In May two United States senators, John Cornyn and Joseph Lieberman, introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) of 2006. FRPAA would require all US government agencies that fund over $100 million in research per year to support open access publication of any resulting research.

Library organizations immediately announced support for FRPAA. Today a consortium of consumer groups, coordinated by the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, announced their support as well. Momentum for open access continues to grow.

Forget Faculty - Let's Sell Open Access (OA) To Librarians

Meredith Farkas over at Information Wants to Be Free has been blogging about the skills needed for 21st century librarianship. Her most recent post (July 29th) finds her "selling" information literacy, and while I like some ideas, she includes a few snoozers - don't we all.

What I like about her blog is her honest attempt at enumerating librarian skills and attitudes for the new information economy. What I don't like is her conspicuous omission of open access, or even a mention of it. In fact, the information literacy post today mentions "peer-review", but not a whit about access. Open access should not be far from the lips of every academic librarian (here's Meredith's Library success wiki and her "access" section).

Open access. Isn't it odd that some librarians miss its connection to absolutely everything we do? and the fact that it's part of the biggest communication and publishing revolution since Gutenberg?

I think OA Librarian needs to work a little harder in getting the message out. Dean

Ranganathan Classics Coming to D-List

The Ranganathan Classics are coming to D-List! - for details, please see Gary Price's post on Resource Shelf.

Michael May, dList classics editor, posted some interesting comments on Ranganathan and OA on the SPARC Open Access Forum.

Thanks to Gary Price, Michael May and others at d-List, and of course, Peter Suber, for the information.

More Journals in Elsevier's "Sponsored Articles" Program

On May 25, I posted news about Elsevier's "sponsored articles" program, which allowed authors of accepted articles to pay $3,000 US to make their article freely available to readers (on top of any other fees). At that time, it applied to six Elsevier journals:

Nuclear Physics A
Nuclear Physics B
Nuclear Physics B
Proceedings Supplements
Nuclear Instruments and Methods A
Physics Letters B
Astroparticle Physics

As of late yesterday, the list of participating journals has been increased to 40, with the addition of 34 more titles:

American Journal of Otolaryngology
Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Artificial Intelligence
Cancer Genetics and Cytogenetics
Cancer Letters
Cardiovascular Pathology
Catalysis Communications
Cell Calcium
Cellular Immunology
Computer Communications
Discrete Applied Mathematics
Epilepsy & Behavior
European Journal of Radiology
Experimental Cell Research
Food and Chemical Toxicology
GenomicsInsect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
International Journal of Parasitology
Journal of Complexity
Journal of Computer and System Sciences
Journal of Molecular Biology
Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry
Journal of Symbolic Computation
Journal of Systems and Software
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Metabolism
Methods
Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology
Neurobiology of Disease
NeuroImage
NutritionPediatric
Neurology
Surface Science
Theoretical Computer Science

So, Elsevier takes a further step in the "hybrid" OA journal environment (not that they're using the words "OA" or Open Access" at all).

Open Source, Open Access - And Open Search?

Gunther Eysenbach's cogent editorial "The Open Access Advantage" over at the open-access Journal of Medical Internet Research hits several points square on the head. The one I find most appealing is that incremental benefits accrue to researchers who publish in open-access journals; the data is clear and unequivocal. Another is the simple truth that open source tools like those developed by UBC's Public Knowledge Project are better alternatives to the commercial OA publishers.

Eysenbach also articulates an important distinction between OA giants like BioMedCentral (one of the so-called commercial or "for profit" OA publishers) and the leaner, meaner OA pioneers like CMAJ and BMJ. Though, I'd be more inclined to applaud outfits like PubMedCentral than the journals or websites he mentions.

And speaking of PubMed, it truly is a pioneer in open search, something health librarians have been advocating since we "let go" of our paranoia that end-user searching was a threat to our profession. Open search merged with open access.

There is little point in making scientific research open access in the absence of coherent open search. That means, a unified search tool - not fragmentary attempts that we've seen in 2006 by Google (sorry - I'm really hammering Google these days) and others.

Some new open, forward-thinking pioneer will find the solution - but let's hope it's sooner rather than later.

OA in the U.S. / Honorary OA Librarian of the Day

New in E-LIS: Peter Suber's Open Access in the United States, in Jacobs, Neil, Eds. Open Access: Key strategic, technical and economic aspects. Chandos Publishing. Peter hints at a long and in-depth leadership history of the U.S. in open access, beginning with Arpanet in 1965, but focuses on a more thorough treatment of the current top 10 U.S. OA initiatives. Worth reading! Let's all hope someday Peter has the time to complete this history...maybe after 100% OA implementation?

If you haven't checked out Open Access News yet today, please note, today's OA News is very highly recommended for OA Librarian types, with no less than 3 librarian-related news items - at least, so far! Peter Suber is hereby recognized as Honorary OA Librarian of the Day.

The librarian items of the day are:
Library Groups Support EC report OA Recommendations

Looking for OA Library Journals

Notes on the LITA Preconference

Thanks, Peter!

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Institute on Scholarly Communication Accepting Applicants

The Association of Research Libraries and Association of College and Research Libraries are currently accepting applications for the Institute on Scholarly Communication. The 2.5 day immersion program will equip participating librarians with the tools to educate other library staff members, and to engage in a dedicated outreach plan on their campuses. Participants are encouraged to apply in teams, particularly if they work for larger institutions.

The deadline to apply is August 15, and the application is here. The institute will be held December 6-8, 2006. This is the second offering of 2006, because the first session proved extremely popular. If you're in a position to create change on your campus, or want to be in this position, you should apply for the Institute on Scholarly Communication!

July 2006 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

Peter Suber has just released the July 2006 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Peter's Summary:

This issue takes a close look at the big step toward OA mandates at the RCUK, the big step toward an OA mandate at the NIH, and the case for mandating OA to electronic theses and dissertations. The Top Stories section takes a brief look at the Royal Society's decision to switch to hybrid OA journals, the PLoS preview of PLoS ONE and its first-ever fee increase, the results to date of Oxford's OA experiments, protests within the American Anthropological Association about the AAA decision to oppose FRPAA, the Science Commons launch of Scholar's Copyright, some new OA policies at three research institutions, and more news and comment on FRPAA.

Heather's comments:

The section on OA to theses and dissertations is thorough, and very much worth reading. While the focus of the open access movement has been on the peer-reviewed research article, from my viewpoint the opening up of access to resources such as theses is one of the more remarkable impacts of the open access movement. Until recently, theses and dissertations were among the more difficult resources to access; due to the expense and concerns about loss of unique or few paper copies, libraries have tended to discourage interlibrary loans. With open access archives, this situation is rapidly changing; the resources, such as theses and dissertations, that were once among the least accessible, are quickly becoming among the most readily accessible. This is important for librarians to know, and not just open access advocates; everyone who works on a reference desk, in library instruction, or interlibrary loans, needs to be aware of the growing OA theses and dissertations, to provide appropriate service.

The comments on the protest of the American Anthropological Association members on the society's decision to oppose FRPAA is well worth noting. According to one member of the Steering Committee, not even the Steering Committee was consulted before this position was taken. This may be the case with other associations and societies as well - members of associations might want to have a look to see what their association is saying.

Dramatic Growth of Open Access June 2006

My June 2006 Dramatic Growth of Open Access Update is now available.

Abstract:

The Dramatic Growth of Open Access continues in the second quarter of 2006, although at a somewhat less hectic pace than the first quarter. Since I've only started noting growth on a quarterly basis beginning last December, it is possible that this reflects seasonable variation, i.e. two months of this period fall within the summer semester in the northern hemisphere, a slower time at academia in general.

Growth continued very strong in both the gold and green roads. DOAJ, today at 2,292 journals, added 134 journal titles, an increase of about 1 and 1/2 titles per day (calendar days, not business days), about an equivalent of a 25% annual increase. More than half a million items were added to an OAIster search, for a total of more than 7.6 million items, or about the equivalent of a 24% annual increase. At the current rate of growth, an OAIster search can be anticipated to encompass more than a billion items before the end of 2007.

The most significant change was a drop in the % increase to Highwire Free Press Online, from an 18% increase in the first quarter to a less than 1% increase in this quarter. It is too soon to draw any conclusions from this change, which could reflect Highwire procedural timing.

Stevan Harnad comments that a missing element is the excellent data available from ROAR, the Registry of Open Access Repositories. An excellent point, and something I'm meaning to add.

Reearch Councils U.K. Open Access Position Announcement

Very important - and very, very good news for open access today, from the U.K.!

The Research Councils U.K. today released their Open Access Position Announcement. In brief, each Council is developing its own policy, reflecting disciplinary differences.

The Medical Research Council has announced a very strong OA mandate policy (required deposit in PubMedCentral / PMC-UK when available) - preferably immediately, but no more than 6 months after publication.

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council "will require a copy of any resulting published journal article or conference proceedings to be deposited, at the earliest opportunity, in an appropriate e-print repository". This policy refers to respecting publishers' copyright and embargo policies - which some might see as a weakness, but might actually refer to authors who have agreements with publishers predating this policy announcement, a sensitivity reflected elsewhere in the RCUK announcement.

The Economic & Social Reearch Council policy says: "For awards from grant applications submitted from 1 October 2006, it will be mandatory, at the earliest opportunity, to:

* Personally deposit, or otherwise ensure the deposit of, a copy of any resultant articles published in journals or conference proceedings, in the ESRC awards and outputs repository.
* Wherever possible, personally deposit, or otherwise ensure the deposit of, the bibliographical metadata relating to such articles, including a link to the publisher's website, at or around the time of publication, in the ESRC awards and outputs repository.

One other council is "strongly encouraging" open access, while the rest are still developing their policies.

For more comments, see:

JISC Welcomes RCUK's statement on access to research outputs

Peter Suber's notes and comments on Open Access News (and continue to watch OA News for further comments, of course).

Thanks to Stevan Harnad on the American Scientist Open Access Forum for sharing the news.

The Open Access Movement and Information for Development

Papers and summary reports from the Open Access Movement and Information for Development online discussion forum coordinated by Sue Adams of the Coady International Institute are now available online and open access.

Contents:

Heather Morrison, Canada. Open Access for Librarians in Developing Countries.

Lydia Anjiah, East Africa. Open Access: Is it a Futile Option for Developing Countries?

Olutoyin Meijiuni, Nigeria. Open Access, Adult Education and Development in Nigeria.

Batchuluun Yembu, Mongolia. Open and Distance Education in Mongolia: Possible Relevance of Open Access.

Arlene Whetter, Vietnam. Open Access and Information for Development in Vietnam.

DidiBahini Youth Forum, Nepal. The "Open Access" (OA) Movement and Information for Development.

Sabina Iseli-Otto, Canada. Open Access and Information for Development: Summary of Online Discussion Messages.

Translations into local languages are welcome.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Microsoft Creative Commons Add-Ins

A nifty tool for self-archivers! Those who use Microsoft Office now have a means of easily adding their Creative Commons licenses directly to Word, Excel, or Powerpoint!

Thanks, Microsoft, and thanks to Chris Burns from Kwantlen University College for the tip.

Dean Giustini joins Biomedical Digital Libraries Advisory Board!

OA Librarian blogger Dean Giustini has joined the Biomedical Digital Libraries Advisory Board!

Congratulations, Dean, and thanks!

In other news, Biomedical Digital Libraries is also moving to an open peer review process, as Marcus Banks explains in a recent editorial on The Future of Biomedical Digital Libraries.

Open Access Presentation at the Canadian Library Association

Newly self-archived in E-LIS!

Morrison, Heather and Waller, Andrew and Vézina, Kumiko (2006) Open Access: Policy, Academic, and University Perspectives. Delivered at Canadian Library Association Conference 2006, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada).


It was my very great pleasure to be a part of this panel of passionate librarian open access advocates at the Canadian Library Association last week!

I presented an update on open access policy developments and talked about why it is funding agencies are so fond of open access; Andrew Waller talked about university libraries' questions and thoughts about the economics of switching to open access; and Kumiko Vézina presented some data from her recently-completed research with faculty members at 6 major Québec Universities. A couple of highlights: Kumiko's findings on the % of faculty who are willing to self-archive are almost the same as those reported by Swan and Brown. It came as a bit of a surprise that 27% of faculty reported that they have already published in an open access journal - more than any of us had thought, but less than any of us would like to see, of course!

The very best part came at the end of the session - the questions, both at the presentation and afterwards - about how to find open access resources, where to publish open access, how to become an open access advocate.

Open Access presenters, here is a tip: be sure to keep up with Peter Suber's Open Access News, right up to presentation time! There were no less than 3 items that morning that we needed to fit in....

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Self-archiving for librarians: the options are multiplying!

Abstract

Not very long ago at all, librarians had few or no options for self-archiving. This is changing dramatically. In the near future, for example, a university librarian in British Columbia may have six or more open access respositories to choose from: a university IR, the COPPUL ANTS repository, BCcampus SOL*R, E-LIS, DLIST, and other LIS repositories, as well as conference options for conference papers. There are advantages to having all these options. A little friendly rivalry can only help to sharpen the repository software. Some repositories can accomodate formats, such as audiovisual, that others cannot. The challenge for all of us involved in open access repositories will be to figure out how to work together, so that we are all promoting self-archiving first, as well as our own options. We also need to keep the user in mind, and find search options that make it easy for the user to find what they are looking for, regardless of which archive houses the item.

Details

One of my favorite themes to write about is the Dramatic Growth of Open Access.

One sign of this growth for librarians is what I am seeing as a dramatic expansion in opportunities for self-archiving for librarians.

A couple of years ago, when I first started thinking about self-archiving, I wasn't sure what archives were available. LIS Archives are still pretty new - E-LIS was just established in 2003.

Now, many a librarian in BC has a number of options for self-archiving already, and the options are expanding. The Canadian Association of Research Libraries has an institutional repository program, so every university librarian either has an institutional repository handy, or will within the next few years.

Building on one of these repositories, D-Space at the University of Calgary, the Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) have a new repository, still in pilot stage, called ANTS (Animated Tutorials Sharing Project), which is capturing imaginations throughout western Canada.

For BC librarians, there is also a provincial repository originally designed for learning objects, the SOL*R repository of BCcampus. BC academic librarians are very excited about the potential of participating in this repository for sharing of learning materials such as tutorials. The Academic Librarians in Public Service (ALPS) group of BCLA has formed a new subcommittee, the BCcampus Shareable Online Resources Team, to develop a space for sharing within the BCcampus repository. [Disclosure: I am the current Chair of ALPS].

Then, of course, there is our very own subject repositories - E-LIS, DLIST, and others, which many of us at OA Librarian are very much involved with.

For conference presentations, there is often an option to post presentations on the conference website as well.

This is all fabulous, of course! This means choice for the author, and a little friendly rivalry won't hurt to encourage development of the repositories. At the moment, there are real advantages to having many repositories. Some of the repositories can accomodate multimedia, for example, while others cannot.

The challenge for all of us involved in LIS self-archiving will be to figure out how to work together. Encouraging self-archiving, and making it easy for the user to find materials regardless of which archive houses them, is more important than who deposits in which archive.

If anyone knows of yet more repository options for librarians, I'd love to hear about them - please post a comment!

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Now OA! 7th International Conference on Webometrics...

The 52 papers from the International Workshop on Webometrics, Scientometrics & Seventh COLLNET meeting are now available in E-LIS.

This is truly an international event and effort in more than one sense! One of the topics covered by many of the presenters is international cooperation in science. The presenters themselves are from all over the world - from the U.S. to Iran, Brazil to China to Germany & France, and more.

E-LIS, the Open Archive for Library and Information Studies, is truly an international effort, too. We are volunteers from more than 50 countries, all working together to build this open archive that supports 22 languages.

Researchers - many thanks for sharing your work!

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Evidence Based Librarianship and Open Access

Issue 1:2 of the open access journal, Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, has just been released.

This issue includes my commentary, Evidence Based Librarianship and Open Access.

Abstract:

Evidence based practice, whether in librarianship or any other profession, depends on access to the evidence, and access to opportunities to share one’s own evidence. Open access (OA) is the perfect complement to evidence based librarianship. OA provides the optimum access to the evidence for librarians everwhere, and the optimum means of dissemination. This article compares examines access to the LIS literature in the print and electronic media, and the impact of open access.

About the journal:

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice is an international journal developed by the Canadian Library Association's Evidence Based Librarianship Interest Group (EBLIG). EBLIG recently announced a new membership offer for international librarians interested in joining the EBLIG only (not CLA). Evidence Based Library and Information Practice is hosted by the University of Alberta Libraries, and uses the free, open source Open Journal Systems software.

dLIST Information Sciences Digital Archive Announces New Editors

We are pleased to announce the dynamic new team of editors for dLIST, the Digital Library of Information Science & Technology. These Information/Library & Information Science faculty and librarians will be responsible for specific subjects.

* Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Asst. Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development, University of Houston Libraries, Houston

* Anita Coleman, Asst. Prof., University of Arizona, Tucson

* Marija Dalbello, Assoc. Prof., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick

* Fernando Elichirigoity, Asst. Prof., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

* Kristin R. Eschenfelder, Assoc. Prof., University of Wisconsin at Madison

* Cheryl Knott Malone, Assoc. Prof., University of Arizona, Tucson

* Paul Marty, Asst. Prof., Florida State University, Tallahassee

* Michael May, Adult Services Librarian, Carnegie-Stout Public Library, Dubuque

* Soo Young Rieh, Asst. Professor, University of Michigan

dLIST is a cross-institutional, subject-based, open access digital archive for the Information Sciences, including Archives and Records Management, Library and Information Science, Information Systems, Museum Informatics, and other critical information infrastructures. The dLIST vision is to serve as a trusted archive and source for scholarly communication in the Information Sciences, broadly understood. dLIST seeks to positively impact and shape scholarly communication in our closely related fields. Editors represent diverse sub-disciplinary communities and work closely with scholars in different fields such as Digital Humanities and Digital Libraries (Marija Dalbello), Government Information and Social Informatics (Kristin Eschenfelder), Information Behaviors (Soo Young Rieh), Museum Informatics (Paul Marty), Scholarly Communication (Charles Bailey), Science Technology Studies (Fernando Elichirigoity), and Classics (Michael May). More information about each of the dLIST editors is available at http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/editors.html.

The new team invites you to self-register, self-archive and explore the many unique features of dLIST.

Some dLIST features are:

* DL-Harvest, http://dlharvest.sir.arizona.edu, an open access aggregator, which brings together materials from 14 global and open access archives in the Information Sciences for meta-searching and access to the full-text

* Detailed Usage Statistics, http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/es/index.php?action=show_detail_date;range=4w provide usage statistics of each item in dLIST

* RSS feeds and subscription alerts for items deposited in dLIST are available both by individual subjects (example: Academic Libraries) as well as the entire archive and anybody can be alerted automatically and quickly about new dLIST works, http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/feeds.html

* A streamlined new web-based submission interface that lets authors upload and deposit their works easily

* Software patches and modifications (useful to Eprints archive maintainers) by Joseph Roback, http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/tnnd.html

* dLIST Classics is a new project that will be making fundamental and leading Library and Information Science texts openly accessible in dLIST.

For more information about dLIST and to self-register please visit http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/ or email dlist at u dot arizona dot edu.

dLIST, Digital Library of Information Science & Technology
Email: dlist at u dot arizona dot edu
Contact: Garry Forger, Learning Technologies at the University of Arizona

Scholar's Copyright

The Scholar's Copyright initiative of Science Commons provides an easy means for researchers to ensure they keep all the rights they need for open access, through an addendum (three different forms) to add to their copyright transfer agreement. Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News for the alert.

Institutional Support Key Variable in Success of Open Access Publishing

Thanks to Peter Suber for alerting us to a new study by McCabe and Snyder, Academic Journal Prices in a Digital Age: A Two Sided Market Model. One of the conclusions of the study is that author's fees for open access journals--which can be a stumbling block to support of open access among academics--can be reduced to nothing, given strong institutional support of open access publishing.

June 2006 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

Peter Suber's June 2006 SPARC Open Access Newsletter is available. Highlights include analysis of the Kaufman-Wills study, the Elsevier hybrid journals, and an update on the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006.

Canadian Parliamentary Library - Beacon of Access

An enduring symbol of Canada's heritage, and history, is our Parliamentary Library. The library was originally completed in 1876, less than a decade after Confederation, and a century after the United States Declaration of Independence.

The octagonal jewelbox of a library is the only part of Canada's original Houses of Parliament to have survived the 1916 fire. A quick-thinking librarian by the name of Alpheus Todd and library clerk Connie MacCormac closed the iron doors to the library just as the fires raged through Centre Block, saving it and all the book from almost certain destruction.

A recent $136 million dollar renovation is a reminder to all open access advocates: long before digital, virtual libraries, the pillar of access was physical libraries. Canada's Parliamentary Library is a case in point, and worth every penny of the hefty sum to preserve access to its treasures for future generations of Canadians, and researchers.

Free College English and Organic Chemistry Resources

Free College English Resources are available, thanks to Beth Ritter-Guth at Lehigh Carbon Community College.

Why? Beth says: "I teach English at a community college in Eastern Pennsylvania, USA. I am opening the doors of all of my English courses in hopes that people from developing countries can use the materials to teach English". Thanks, Beth!

Beth's group participates as a Writing Partner in Useful Chemistry, an open-source approach to science developed by Jean-Claude Bradley of Drexel University. This open -source approach involves sharing not only information, but opportunities to participate in research through blogging experiments and the use of wikis. The writing partners help to make science information more accessible by writing science information in a way that can be understood by those without research-level expertise.

Jean-Claude Bradley's group makes available free Organic Chemistry Resources. There are links to other free chemistry resources too - at the University of Alberta, MIT, and CU Boulder.

This open source approach to science is one of the interest areas of Chemists Without Borders. When your aim is education and development around the world - open access, and open source, just makes sense!

PPT for OA presentation at BCLA

How's that for an acronyn-filled (or is it an initialism-filled) title? Anyway, the powerpoint for the presentation I gave with Brian Owen and Lesley Perkins at the British Columbia Library Association (BCLA) conference last month, "Open Access: Three Perspectives", has been deposited into E-LIS. It can be found at http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00006341/, available to all.

Seeing is Believing

While OA disbelievers are right about the existence of profitable publishers and their grip on profits, what must be remembered is that OA does not require their cooperation. Here's another Peter Suber article explaining the wonders of OA to authors who have trouble seeing past the profit barrier. Excerpt:

"A surprising number of OA converts - I am one - did not go beyond understanding to enthusiasm until they provided OA to their own writings and saw for themselves, sometimes suddenly, the signs of rising impact. There is a discernible increase in e-mail from serious readers, inclusions in course syllabi, links from on-line indices, invitations to important conferences and citations in other publications. When you experience this in your own case, although anecdotal it is compelling. When you hear it from a trusted colleague, it is persuasive. OA is about barrier-free sharing of research results with colleagues worldwide. This enlarges our audience and increases our impact. This is the message that our busy colleagues must understand. "

It's Not Just About the Money

Recently a faculty member (male, 50s, not tenured) told me and a friend (both of us female, 40s, librarians, passionate OA advocates) that he "doesn't believe in open access." Says it will never happen, there are too many capitalists out there, too many people making a lot of money, and there's no way they're going to stop publishing scholarly articles for profit. And he's in the LIS field, too (oh, the shame!). Which doesn't necessarily mean he understands open access. Research has indicated that many academic researchers don't have a good handle, for various reasons, on the OA concept. What to say to these academic disbelievers, poo-pooing OA, confused about the money? I'm sure you have some ideas. There's an answer to the profit argument (and several others) in this Peter Suber 2002 article Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature. Give it your own style, of course.

"Sponsored Articles" in Elsevier Journals

First thing this morning (Thursday, May 25, 2006) I came across a posting to the liblicense-l list from Tony McSean and Daviess Menefee from Elsevier with the subject "Sponsored Articles In Elsevier Journals". The gist of this post is that, starting this month, Elsevier will allow authors of articles that have been accepted to six physics journals to make their articles accessible to non-subscribers for a "sponsorship" fee of $3,000. The journals involved are:

Nuclear Physics A
Nuclear Physics B
Nuclear Physics B Proceedings Supplements
Nuclear Instruments and Methods A
Physics Letters B
Astroparticle Physics

Over the next two months, 30 more Elsevier journals from other subject areas will also start to offer this option.

The fee does not include other possible charges such as colour costs and taxes.

I figured that something would be coming from Elsevier sooner or later. It's very interesting that the terms "open access" and "OA" are never mentioned in the posting. Thoughts on this anyone?

There is more information about the sponsored articles option on the journal homepages which can be accessed via www.elsevier.com; a search using the term "sponsored articles" will pull these up. Supposedly, there is also information on the Elsevier author gateway site but I couldn't find anything there (yet); I suspect that it will appear soon.

Time Flies When You're Fighting the Good Fight

This article by Peter Suber - "Removing the Barriers to Research: An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians" - is already over three years old (where does the time go??), but certainly well worth reading (or re-reading, if you saw it back in 2003) by librarians and non-librarians everywhere.

Solar-powered donkey libraries

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but literacy, computers and internet access are essential for everyone to take advantage of open access, after all:

Solar-powered donkey libraries, an extension of the new Prince Rupert Library, are bringing books, literacy - and electronic gadgets, including computers and internet access - to children throughout Zimbabwe.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Toward the Creation of a New Scholarly Press

Kathleen Fitzpatrick wants "nothing less than to revolutionize scholarship, both what it looks like and how it gets done"... As an outcome of the April 24, 2006 meeting of the Institute for the Future of the Book, in Toward the Creation of a New Scholarly Press, Kathleen talks about a process of creation of electronic manuscripts involving open access deposit of preprints and a post-print, open peer review process. Highly recommended reading!

Thanks to Alvin Schrader.

Open Access Brochure in Turkish

ANKOS OA&IR Working Group prepared Open Access (OA) Brochure in Turkish to guide researchers, academics, and librarians on what is open access; what is not open access; how to create open access: green and gold ways; open access and copyright; impact of open access and royalty free publication; why and how to support open access; open access in international context; towards to national open access movement and open access activities in Turkey. It is similar in format to the SPARC OA Brochure. The ANKOS OA Brochure will be distributed to the university administations, libraries, and research centers in Turkey to create awareness on the subject.

IFLA: Promoting the Implementation of Open Access

Some of the presentations from the upcoming IFLA conference in Seoul this August are already online! Links can be found at Gary Price's Resource Shelf. Gary says he will continue posting the IFLA OA papers as they are posted. Thanks to Peter Suber on OA News.

Morrison & Waller Talk Open Access - CHLA/ABSC

The Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA/ABSC) is hosting its annual conference in Vancouver, B.C. from May 12-16th. OA Librarians Heather Morrison and Andrew Waller are presenting their talk Open access for the medical librarian on Sunday May 14th. As program chair, I am happy to welcome my open access colleagues to our annual conference.

Article on NIH OA Policy in Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education for May 11, 2006 has an article on the state of the National Institute of Health (NIH) open-access policy after one year ("NIH Has Little to Celebrate on 1st Anniversary of Its Open-Access Policy, but Changes May Be on Way"). There's not much in the article that is new to readers of OA Librarian but it is a nice summary of the situation. Here are a few things that are mentioned:

• The NIH policy requesting that authors deposit articles borne from NIH-funded research in an OA repository no later than 12 months after publication has generally failed, with less than 4% compliance.
• In November, an NIH working group recommended that the deposition be made mandatory and that the window for deposit be shortened to six months. A deputy director of NIH says that the organization is looking at changes to the policy but is not ready to implement anything yet.
• Some publishers want to keep the policy as is and are concerned about the effects possible changes may have on subscriptions. There is a brief section in the article dealing with whether or not access to articles in OA repositories actually has an impact on subscriptions.
• There is a short mention of the proposed Federal Research Public Access Act, which would mandate deposition of articles based on research funded by 11 US federal government agencies within a six month period.

The Chronicle article can be found at
http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/05/2006051101n.htm?rss but, unfortunately, it's not OA; it's limited to subscribers.

Blogger comments on Google Scholar Rival

Dean Giustini, OA Librarian blog team member, Google Scholar blogger (and by day a librarian at the University of British Columbia's Biomedical Branch), is quoted in the April 2006 issue of The Scientist Magazine, in an article called Librarians Start Your Search Engines, about Microsoft's new free product, Windows Live Academic Search. Giustini says he likes Microsoft’s Academic Search’s “bells and whistles,” such as self-sort and importing results, which “are the kinds of features we normally pay for in our fee-based tools.”

(Where I found this article: May 2006 issue of UBC's e-Strategy Update).

SA Research Publishing Report Includes OA Recommendation

A report issued in March by the Academy of Science of South Africa (http://www.assaf.co.za/) entitled Report on a Strategic Approach to Research Publishing in South Africa, which looks at ways to improve the quality and visibility of South African journals, includes a recommendation (#6) dealing with Open Access. This recommendation reads:

"that the Department of Science and Technology takes responsibility for ensuring that Open Access initiatives are promoted to enhance the visibility of all South African research articles and to make them accessible to the entire international research community. Specifically:

■ online, open access (“Gold route”) versions of South African research journals should
be funded in significant part through a per-article charge system (linked in the case of
higher education institutions to an agreed fraction of output publication subsidies, and
in the case of other research- producing institutions to adapted budgeting practice),
but publishers should still sell subscriptions to print copies and should maximise
other sources of income to lower the article-charge burden;
■ a federation of institutional Open Access repositories, adhering to common standards,
should be established (“Green route”), with resources made available to help institutions
in the preliminary stage, this virtual repository to be augmented by a central repository
for those institutions which are unable to run a sustainable repository;
■ national harvesting of South African Open Access repositories should be undertaken as
a matter of urgency, preferably by the NRF; and the importance of affordable bandwidth
for research communications for this purpose be drawn to the attention of DST officials
negotiating for better rates."

The complete report can be found at http://blues.sabinet.co.za/images/ejour/assaf/assaf_strategic_research_publishing.pdf.

There's also an article on the report at http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=2828&language=1&utm_source=feed-1&utm_medium=rss.

SSHRC Decision on OA

It's easy for us OA advocates to feel disappointed by the recent SSHRC decision not to impose mandatory requirements on researchers to publish via open access. Instead, SSHRC has opted to focus on creating awareness and pursuing discussions with major stakeholders, and to gradually incorporate open access provisions in research support programs.

Michael Geist makes a few points worth noting about the decision.

60th LIS Journal in DOAJ!

There are now 60 LIS Journals in DOAJ!. Welcome to new DOAJ journal, the Chinese / English
Journal of Educational Media & Library Sciences. This is getting to be an impressive list of journals - to read, or to publish in!

Bibliography Update

From Charles W. Bailey Jr.: Version 62 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available. It contains over 2,600 articles, books and other print and electronic sources. Very helpful for understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet.

See also (by the same author) the following "liographies" (both listed under Resources to the right: The Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals. Provides more indepth coverage of the OA movement and related topics. And The Open Access Webliography, which provides access to a number of websites related to OA topics.

SPARC Open Access Newsletter

The May issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter is online. Peter Suber highlights the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, introduced by Senators John Cornyn and Joe Lieberman in the U.S. senate this morning.

Access Begins with "A" - Librarians Start There

One of the most innovative health sciences libraries in the United States is the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah. Last week, UofU (hey, that has a ring, doesn't it?) did some live-streaming of their "Access Horizon Conference, 2006" keynotes, including a few heavyweights from the medical library community.

I encourage all librarians interested in access - isn't open access, for us, a tautology? - to listen to & watch the U.S. National Librarian of Medicine, Donald Lindberg's talk on access to truthful and relevant scientific information.

Open access, if you must, is covered in "A Call to Change: Open Access Initiatives and the Movement to Transform Scholarly Communication" by Joyce L. Ogburn, Director, J. Willard Marriott Library Valeri Craigle, Digital Initiatives, Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library (slides), RealMedia video of session.

Civicaccess.ca -- A new wiki for OA

Check out this new wiki for OA, called civicaccess.ca, founded by a group of citizens which believes all levels of government should make civic information and data accessible at no cost in open formats to their citizens. From the wiki's front page:

"Citizens for Open Access to Civic Information and Data (CivicAccess) is a group of citizens which believes all levels of government should make civic information and data accessible at no cost in open formats to their citizens. We believe this is necessary to allow citizens to fully participate in the democractic process of an "information society."

Thank you to Peter Suber, Carla Graebner and Olivier Charbonneau for messages about this wiki. The link has been added to our Resources bar (under Wikis) on the right.

(S)Uber Ego Boost

Further to the idea of a feature on the university homepage showcasing a "Faculty Article of the Day" (appealing to faculty members' egos to entice them to deposit their work in the IR), in a recent Open Access News post Peter Suber adds:

"The Dutch take this idea a step further with Cream of Science, which showcases to the whole country --or, actually, the whole world-- the best work on deposit in Dutch OA repositories. The strategy has been very successful both in attracting readers and stimulating deposits."

Thanks again, Peter.

OA Librarian in the news

In his May issue of "Cites & Insights" Walt Crawford mentions the launch of OA Librarian and has some complimentary things to say about our blog and the team. Walt's whole document is a great read, as usual, but note that pages 12-20 deal with "Library Access to Scholarship."

(Thank you to Peter Suber's recent posting alerting us to Walt's May issue).

Economist Magazine Survey of New Media

The Economist has published an important survey of new media in its latest issue, which considers the phenomenon of wikis and even briefly touches upon folksonomy. The survey touches upon the struggles between old and new media, which is really a struggle between content that is pre-packaged for a mass audience and content created on a grass-roots level by dedicated people (such as this very blog.)

The magazine--which has a fair reputation for being somewhat stuffy--actually takes a positive view of the potential for new ways to create and share intellectual work. Of note for librarians--There's no discussion of our role in this emerging media landscape. Rather than seeing it as an insult, perhaps this is an opportunity to raise awareness about the important work librarians do.

Ego? What ego?

One of the biggest challenges for academic librarians is getting faculty to deposit their articles into the university's institutional repository (IR), assuming there is one, of course. There are numerous reasons why faculty don't or won't deposit their articles, and there are numerous strategies, some more effective than others, for convincing them to do so. John Willinsky (UBC professor, and author of "The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship") believes the key is to appeal to their ego. Faculty love to see their work widely disseminated, read, praised and cited. It feeds their ego, they're human. But what's the hook?

John suggests putting a section on the university website homepage that advertises the IR and the university's research output with a feature called "Faculty Article of the Day" (or week, if daily seems too arduous), with a link to the article in the IR. He claims that many faculty check their institution's homepage regularly to see what's new and which faculty member's work is getting attention. It won't take long before faculty realize that if they want their research featured on the homepage, they'd best find a way to deposit it in the IR.

Why not go a step further and add the same feature to the university library homepage? Double-boost those egos, and increase access and exposure while you're at it?

Thanks, John, for an excellent idea for promoting OA and IRs.

Net Neutrality Website

Peter Suber has pointed out that "compromising net neutrality will cause collateral damage to OA." Those who want to learn more about net neutrality, a pressing issue these days, can check out the Save the Internet website and its blog.

Stats Canada electronic docs at no charge!

From The Daily:

Effective April 24, all electronic publications on Statistics Canada's Web site will be available free of charge.

The Agency has been steadily increasing the volume of free content on its Web site to respond to the information needs of Canadians. This latest move makes available at no charge more than 150 electronic publications for which fees were previously charged.

Statistics Canada will continue to charge for print versions of publications and for other electronic products and services, such as CD-ROMs, specialized data tables and customized retrievals from CANSIM and the Canadian International Merchandise Trade database.

For more information, contact François Bordé (613-951-2808), Communications and Library Services Division.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Open Access Archiving Maillist

An open access archiving maillist has been set up, primarily for managers of open access archives who would like to discuss issues relating to OA archiving in the dual sense of providing access and preservation.

The reason for setting up this list was interest expressed in exploring the use of LOCKSS software as a preservation mechanism for OA archives. The nature of LOCKSS requires collaborative groups, as preservation involves a set of LOCKSS boxes (usually about 6) which constantly communicate with each other. There are reasons why LOCKSS boxes are best dispersed. Hence, this list can serve as a means for OA archivers to meet other potential LOCKSS-group participants.

The list is open to anyone, however, in order to avoid spam, subscribing and unsubscribing is manual. To subscribe, please contact me at heather dot eln dot bc dot ca.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

OA in ALPSP report

OA repositories and their affect on the subscription decisions made by librarians is the focus of the recently-released report by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), "ALPSP Survey of Librarians on Factors in Journal Cancellation". I haven't read the entire report yet (it's not OA) though I did complete the survey. It seems that there is concern on the part of ALPSP about what the burgeoning amount of content in OA repositories of various stripes will do to library journal subscriptions. The results of the survey may allay these worries, at least in part; for instance, respondents said that availability of articles in repositories was behind faculty needs, usage, and price as a factor in cancellations and that repositories are not seen by librarians as substitutes for "properly managed journal holdings". The data that does make ALPSP sweat a bit is that 54% of respondents said that availability in "OA archives" is an important factor in determining cancellations and that 81% believe that this importance will grow in the next half-decade.

The summary and conclusions, survey results, and press release can be found at http://www.alpsp.org/publications/pub12.htm.

OA in Latest Library Journal Serials Pricing Article

Open Access is mentioned several times in the latest version of the annual serials pricing issue (as well as looking at prices over the last several years, the article usually provides a summary of the major issues in the journal world since the previous report). In fact, OA is noted as occupying "center stage in the journals marketplace in 2005, eclipsing issues of price, publisher mergers, and big deals". Some of the items covered are:

• The increase in the number of journals included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (www.doaj.org). The article notes that, as of mid-February 2006, DOAJ contained 2,044 OA journals, up over 600 from the same period in 2005 (as of this morning, DOAJ was at 2184).
• The high impact factors for some OA journals, especially notable considering the youth of these journals. PLOS Biology and some BMC titles are given as examples
• The research that shows "that OA articles generate between 25% and 250% more citations than non-OA articles in the same journal from the same year". This comes from the "oft-quoted" article "Ten-Year Cross-Disciplinary Comparison of the Growth of Open Access and How it Increases Research Citation Impact" (IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin 28(4) pp. 39-47, eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11688)
• The report from the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) that shows that subscription-based journals are more likely to charge author fees than OA journals are. This report also indicates that 40% of OA journals are still in the red financially.
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Research Councils of the UK (RCUK) situations. These involved recommendations to direct scholars to deposit their research results (articles) in OA repositories.
• The OA options offered by commercial journal publishers. The article mentions Open Choice from Springer (http://www.springer.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,,1-40359-0-0-0,00.html; affects 1200 journals), Online Open from Blackwell (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/static/onlineopen.asp; affects 80 journals), Oxford Open from Oxford University Press (http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/; affects 42 journals), and Author Select from the American Institute of Physics (http://www.aip.org/press_release/author_select.html; affects 3 journals).
• The fact that over 90% of scholarly publishers allow article pre- and/or post-prints to be deposited in subject and/or institutional repositories by authors (see SHERPA for a list: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php), though not many authors are doing this.

The complete LJ article can be found at http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6321722.html

Open Educational Resources

Interesting site!
Open Educational Resources: Free Access to Open Materials for Teaching, Learning and Research. Designed for developing countries, free access for anyone to search and deposit works. Supported by the William & Flora Hewlitt Foundation.

Does Human Health Rely on Open Access (OA)?

In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, the article

Access to the Scientific Literature — A Difficult Balance

Dr. Martin Frank asks provocatively "How should we decide which public good is preferable?..." Open access to the best medical evidence, or promoting the research that advances medical knowledge? There is little point in having access to scientific literature, frankly, in the absence of care - suggests Frank.

Much of what Dr. Frank uses as a lightning rod in his debate of the pros and cons of open access in medicine comes from UBC's John Willinsky's book The Access Principle. The article raises good points about the economics, ethics and politics associated with access to medical evidence in an age when access to healthcare is itself a significant challenge.

E-LIS on Laurie the Librarian's blog

Laurie the Librarian has blogged a nifty explanation of E-LIS:

As a librarian, are you looking for a place to digitally store your papers, presentations, or other materials that you would like to share with the rest of the profession but don't have the means to do so? Why not try E-LIS?

Thanks for the plug, Laurie - and, nifty blog!

The CERN Library Team: an OA Inspiration!

CERN - the world’s largest particle physics laboratory and birthplace of the World Wide Web, and the CERN Library Team – currently led by Jens Vigen, has been a leader in the open dissemination of scientific results since its inception decades ago. CERN’s free distribution of preprints in paper format has evolved with the technologies available, from FTP to World Wide Web distribution, to the current OAI-compliant CERN Document Server (CDS). If any discipline could afford to rest on its OA laurels, you would think it would be physics! The CERN Library Team, however, is not resting on its laurels at all, but continues to lead the way, from OA via self-archiving to a current push towards full OA publishing (and self-archiving, too).

Accomplishments of the CERN library team include:

The CDS - CERN Document Server repository - as of April 9, 2006, CDS contains over 800,000 bibliographic records, including 360,000 fulltext documents, of interest to people working in particle physics and related areas. A whole team of hard working people have concentrated on this, filling it, harvesting, programming, scanning, managing, etc.

Organising (along with LIBER, SPARC, SPARC Europe, OSI and the OAI) - and hosting the OAI Workshops, one of the world’s major gathering-points for the open access archiving community. As the facilitator of a breakout session at OAI4 – the CERN Workshop on Scholarly Innovations , it is my impression that this series of workshops is an accomplishment not only for advancing OA, but also as a model of how to run a workshop. This was not only one of the most informative workshops I’ve ever attended, it was also among the friendliest for networking, too.

High Energy Physics (HEP) Libraries Webzine (an OA publication).

CERN’s involvement with open access extends back decades to the very beginnings of CERN. Open dissemination of scientific results at CERN began with free distribution of preprints in paper form, and continued electronically via FTP and the World Wide Web before migrating to the current OAI- compliant CERN Document Server.

CERN is now on at the least the third OA policy revision, which addresses OA journals. In 2005, the focus at CERN library was changing publication model meetings. That is, CERN – and its library – are leading the way once more in physics, to move from OA via self-archiving to full OA via OA publishing (and self-archiving too).

The CERN Library Team, like other OA leaders that I know (even if I haven't written about them, at least not yet), has not accumulated a long list of publications and presentations – this team has been too busy implementing to write and present! There are some details about CERN Library's OA history in the presentation,
CERN Document Server Software: The Integrated Digital Library.

For the latest on CERN library’s OA leadership, have a look at the SPARC Open Access Forum Archives - look for the thread, CERN’s Historic Role in OA. CERN’s Joanne Yeomans, for example, talks about current developments, including a basket (for creating one’s own bibliographies) and rating system.

Or, better yet, sign up for the SPARC Open Access Forum (SOAF), moderated by Peter Suber, and join in the discussion!

There is a sentiment amongst OA advocates, myself included, that it would be a very fine thing if some of these OA implementation leaders would have some support to promote and explain to the rest of us what they have been doing. All of us OA librarians can benefit from their experiences! Keep up the good work, CERN Library Team – you’re an inspiration to us all!


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

E-LIS OA News

This week in E-LIS: two new submissions on OA, and a brand new Greek interface!

Antelman, Kristin (2006) Self-archiving practice and the influence of publisher policies in the social sciences. Learned Publishing 19(2):pp. 85-95.

Bauer, Bruno (2005) Open Access Publishing - Trends in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz : Initiativen, Projekte, Stellenwert. Delivered at ODOK '05 : 11. Österreichisches Online-Informationstreffen ; 12. Österreichischer Dokumentartag : "Zugang zum Fachwissen", Bozen: Freie Universität Bozen. Presentation.

Many thanks to the Greece E-LIS team for the E-LIS Greek Interface. Some of the E-LIS main pages have also been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Le biblioteche per la libertà d'accesso all'informazione

May 18 - 19, 2006 Bologne. Le biblioteche per la libertà d'accesso all'informazione. (Italian). Thanks to biblio-info-sociedad.

Is hiring Davidoff as Interim Editor CMAJ's last chance?

Despite an almost inexplicable series of gaffes since January 2006, emeritus editor of the Annals of Interal Medicine Dr. Frank Davidoff has agreed to serve as the Canadian Medical Association Journals' Interim Editor, according to this Canadian Press article.

Some may view Davidoff's appointment as a positive sign for the beleaguered Canadian journal, but the CMAJ is not out of the woods by a longshot. In fact, a panel led by Antonio Lamer, a retired chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, is studying the issue of the strained relationship between the CMAJ and the CMA and will make recommendations regarding a new governance structure in late June.

In the meantime, one question arises: is all of this too little, too late? Reputations are hard to build, and even harder to restore.

April SPARC Open Access Newsletter

The April 2006 SPARC Open Access Newsletter is now available. Peter Suber highlights the The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG)'s adoption of an OA policy instructing grantees to provide OA to DFG-funded research, and discusses progress on other national open access policies.

UBC Library Hosts Two New OA Journals

The UBC Library is hosting two new open access (OA) journals:

1. (TCI) Transnational Curriculum Inquiry: The Journal of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci (See IAACS)

2. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry/ (call for papers for first issue) http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/newproposals

UBC Library will host the OA journals without charge, for now. Faculty interested in having ejournals hosted by UBC Library sign an agreement outlining the responsibilities and liabilities for the Library and participating ejournals. The agreement indicates that the Library will offer server space and the OJS software to store and disseminate the contents of the ejournals. Each of the journal publishers will be provided with administrative control to allow them to set up their own online area for their respective journals.

Bronwen Sprout, the Digital Initiatives Librarian, says that "This could potentially develop into a much larger initiative with the Library assuming an important role in supporting and encouraging new models of scholarly communication on the UBC campus."

Biblios Now in DOAJ

Biblios: Revista de Bibliotecología y Ciencias de la Información, published since 1999, is a new addition to DOAJ, the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Articles in the current issue cover topics ranging from the ethnography of weblogs to the potential of using bank website marketing techniques in the library ambit to intelligent use of the internet. In spanish, with english abstracts.

Welcome to DOAJ, Biblios!

Marcus Banks Appointed Editor-in-Chief for Biomedical Digital Libraries journal

Marcus Banks, one of our own here at OA Librarian, has been appointed an editor-in-chief for the journal, Biomedical Digital Libraries (BDL). BDL is an online journal within BioMedCentral (BMC), an important open access (OA) publisher.

We wish Marcus well in his new role as co-editor of one of BioMedCentral's key journals. For more information, see Marcus' World (his blog) or review his publications here in MEDLINE. Congratulations Marcus! - Dean

CMAJ: Open Access & "Flattening" Is Best Rx

According to an article in Saturday's Globe and Mail - "Prescription for Canada: an unfettered medical journal" - the cure for what is ailing the Can Med Assoc J is twofold: first, a move to a fully independent, not-for-profit journal for medical research; second, an open access (OA) model similiar to the Public Library of Science (PLoS).

UBC's John Willinsky, who resigned last week from the CMA Board, is quoted in the article as saying: ".. the events at the CMAJ suggest an alternative scientific publication may be needed in Canada". Willinsky adds that "The advantage of this [OA] model is that it can be started quickly and at low cost. We don't want to rush into this, but we could definitely do it."

The backlash against the CMAJ seems to fit into a global trend described by Thomas Friedman as "flattening" in The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Simply put, the digital revolution makes it possible for researchers to collaborate easily, and for decisions to be made less hierarchically by private interests - more "flattened". Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven by new economic models, individual innovation and freelancing. (By the way, Globalization 1.0? The discovery of North America in 1492.)

Whatever model is adopted, CMA's Board needs to restore editorial freedom and move the journal toward more transparency. They got the open access part right, but need to recognize the importance of freedom and transparency in a world that is increasingly going global, and flat.

Ann Okerson: An Unauthorized Tribute

Would the conscientiously, studiously neutral moderator of Liblicense-L care to be cast an open access advocate? My suspicion is no - therefore, this particular tribute is completely unauthorized.

Ann Shumelda Okerson has a personal tradition of self-archiving on her own web site that is as awesomely open as any archivangelist might wish.

Many of us have benefited from the Liblicense-L discussion list over the years - a forum that is open in more than one sense. Liblicense-L is a public list, open for anyone to participate or to view the archives. The discussion list itself, in my opinion, is a model of a new form of open scholarly communication. Plus, the topics of discussion, while revolving around the central theme of database licensing, are open to include related topics, such as all of the broader changes occurring in scholarly communications, including open access. No wonder Liblicense-L has been one of the most interesting discussion venues for open access.

Over the years, Ann has worked hard in collaboration with others to expand access to knowledge to those in developing countries, helping to develop the HINARI project. Most recently, Ann has become one of the directors of the OARE project. As reported by Peter Suber in Open Access News, OARE will "make prestigious scientific journals in the environment sciences available online to the developing world at little or no cost."

For all that you do to make the world a more open place, Ann: thanks!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

PerX Project and 'Marketing' with Metadata

PerX (Pilot Engineering Repository Xsearch) is a two-year JISC Digital Repositories Programme project, which is developed to provide a cross-repository search tool for the engineering learning and research community. PerX has released an advocacy document entitled "Marketing with Metatdata - How Metadata Can Increase Exposure and Visibility of Online Content" which introduces the means by which content providers can share, or embed, their descriptive data (metadata), with other websites, in standard and reusable ways. This document seems very useful for those, interested in what ways medatada can be exposed.

Elsevier's Response to Depositing Articles in E-LIS

Steve Oberg on the Family Man Librarian blog writes about Elsevier's Response to Depositing Articles in E-LIS. Basically, Elsevier allows authors to deposit peer-reviewed postprints on personal web servers, but not subject repositories.

Peter Suber on Open Access News comments:
"Publishers that insist on this distinction either do not grasp the implications of OAI interoperability or want to place special burdens on authors without IRs or without institutional affiliation".

Peter's first point is that this policy is just a little silly - an open access postprint in an institutional repository is every bit as accessible as one in a subject repository.

One thought for Elsevier and other publishers: if limits are desired, perhaps limit deposit to open access archives, whether institutional or subject. This would eliminate the possibility of re-sale, which may be what is intended. (Note - I'm not sure I've completely thought this one through; comments on this idea would be appreciated).

Peter is right that this does cause inequity for authors. For example, here in British Columbia, the only fully operational institutional repository is at Simon Fraser University Library. Within the next few years, all the large university libraries will likely have open access IRs. This still leaves great inequity - librarians at colleges, public or special libraries are not likely to have access to an IR for some time.

Here is my advice for authors like Steve until this policy is remedied: before submitting your paper, consider whether the journal is OA-friendly. Check the DOAJ list of OA LIS journals - 57 journals as of March 17, 2006 - or, keep up with OA Librarian for announcements of new OA journals like Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, and consult the Sherpa Romeo list for library journals - look for the green journals that allow for self-archiving of both preprint and postprint.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Open access (OA) medical podcasting

Over at UBC Google scholar blog this week, I blogged the top five (5) podcasting websites which were selected (unscientifically) as a librarian might select books - based on knowledge of what was available, credibility and/or reputation of any authors and publishers as well as evaluation of the quality/presentation of the information itself.

Not surprisingly, whether or not the podcast was openly accessible was also important. In the final analysis, a number of excellent podcasts were ruled out as they were inaccessible, subscription-based or limited in terms of how the information was delivered (iPod only, for example).

What's my point here? In the post-textual web, the principles of open access will have to extend to audio and video formats, the web's new wave. Thus, the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA's new audio commentary and the open-access Arizona Heart Institute CVMD.org all get top honours.

The AHI's multimedia podcasts on cardiovascular topics are free to all patients, and clinicians, and serve as a model in healthcare education. In medicine at least, the principles of open access should be extended to pod and vodcasting; these new types of sources should be made available to all care-givers and patients to improve the quality of patient care. - Dean

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice: new OA LIS journal

The inaugural issue of Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) is now online.

EBLIP is open access, peer reviewed and is the first journal to focus specifically on evidence based practice in the information professions.

In addition to the valuable Evidence Summaries section, this issue also contains research articles, papers presented at the 3rd EBL Conference in Australia, and EBL Conference abstracts.

Many thanks to CLA's Evidence Based Librarianship Interest Group, and to the editorial team:

Lindsay Glynn , Editor-in-Chief
Denise Koufogiannakis, Associate Editor (Evidence Summaries)
Pam Ryan, Production Editor

Bielefeld Conference Presentations in E-LIS

The presentations from the 8th Annual Bielefeld Conference (2006) are now available in E-LIS.

Those who are interested in scholarly communications might want to view ALL of the presentations - I know I do! Some examples:

Tony Hey's E-Science and its Implications for the Library Community

Donatella Castelli's Digital Libraries of the Future - and the Role of Libraries

Sarah E. Thomas' Publishing Solutions for Contemporary Scholars: The Library as Innovator and Partner

...and much, much more!

Many thanks to the Bielefeld conference organizers and presenters, and the E-LIS team.

SPARC Futures: An Evolving Agenda

Just added to E-LIS: SPARC Futures: An Evolving Agenda, a presentation by Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Research Coalition. Recommended reading for OA Librarian types!

Abstract:

Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Research Program) briefly describes SPARC, its mission - to advance a more open system of scholarship by reducing barriers to access, sharing, and use of scholarship, and the current SPARC focus on Open Access. The SPARC open access vision is one of scholarly communication in the networked digital environment that eliminates toll barriers, maximizes potential usage, more fully realizes the value of research, and addresses dysfunction in the legacy system. It is emphasised that open access is an access model, not a business model. Current SPARC activities are highlighted.

ASIST 2005: Sparking Synergies: Bringing Research and Practice Together

Papers from the American Society for Information Science & Technology's (ASIST)2005 Annual Meeting, Sparking Synergies: Bringing Research and Practice Together, are now online and freely available in E-LIS.

This initiative beautifully illustrates many of the themes of OA Librarian, in my opinion.

The benefits of open access to these conference papers are obvious. Everyone with access to the internet has ready access to the conference proceedings, not just those who could attend the conference or purchase the proceedings. This helps us all to bridge the gap between theory and practice. This is one of the most exciting transformative possibilities of the combination of the electronic medium and the world wide web, that is, the ability to develop evidence-based practice in areas like medicine and librarianship, most effective through the optimum dissemination of research, which is open access.

The ready findability of the conference papers enhances discovery of these high-quality resources by people interested in the paper topics. No wonder, then, that the US E-LIS Editorial Team received a substantial and enthusiastic response to the question about archiving of these papers; in record time and without reminders, about half the authors responded with an enthusiastic yes, please make my work available in E-LIS, with only one author opting out.

One might speculate that this initiative will enhance the impact not only of the individual authors, but also that of the sponsoring body, ASIST, as well. After all, people are more likely to find the high-quality work that is presented at the ASIST annual meetings.

Placing these papers in the open archive (E-LIS) greatly enhances access to this work - conference proceedings have often been seen as grey literature, quality work but much less accessible than more traditionally published material. Marcus Banks talks about this potential of open access - see Towards a Continuum of Scholarship.

Open access archives facilitate access - but also preservation. Including these papers in E-LIS enhances preservation of these documents in electronic form. This is an important point. Many worry, with good reason, about the long-term preservation of the electronic medium. Open access indirectly facilitates preservation in ways that are little understood. According to the LOCKSS (lots of copies keep stuff safe) principle, the more copies of a document, the better the chances that it will survive. With open access, as many copies can be made as people would like. A full back-up of E-LIS is made weekly, and an incremental back-up is made daily. Authors are provided advice on formats for submission for preservation purposes - standards-based, non-proprietary formats that are known to have better likelihood of preservation are encouraged, for example. This is not yet ideal for preservation purposes, of course - but much better than options such as placing powerpoints - a vulnerable format - on websites which may or may not be maintained over the medium to longer term.

Optimum dissemination through open access can facilitate further research as well as improve practice. For example, the following paper by Caryn Anderson and Gabriele Bammer alerted me to a lack of knowledge about the global research environment. Like many, my time for professional reading is limited, and I would probably never have encountered this article if it were only disseminated in the printed proceedings. Thanks to the open access status of this paper, however, I am now aware of an important research question in need of attention, and can readily draw this to the attention of colleagues through a simple URL. To me, this can only highlight the importance of the work presented at this conference, and increase the probablity of purchase of the conference proceedings in these days of very limited acquisitions dollars.

Anderson, Caryn and Bammer, Gabriele (2005) Measuring the Global Research Environment: Information Science Challenges for the 21st Century. In Grove, Andrew, Eds. Proceedings 68th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) 42, Charlotte, NC (US)

Open access is impossible without findability

Open access (OA) advocates like Peter Suber and my colleagues here at OA Librarian do a marvelous job of documenting the progress of the OA movement. In a post-OA world, however, what about findability? What about the search side of the equation? Without search engines like Google, for example, what happens to easy findability?? The problem is likely to be exacerbated as the web scales in size, and complexity.

Authority destabilizes in open access models. I am thinking in terms of authority files in catalogues but also with respect to authoritative information. I grew up in a small suburb of Calgary, Alberta where authority was never questioned, where the World Book Encyclopedia was "what was right". For all its limitations, at least a ten year old could find the World Book confidently at the local public library. Can that same ten year old trust Wikipedia?

OA librarians need to spend time and intellectual energy thinking about OA advocacy beyond free information for all. Dismantling paid search, for example. Advocating for OpenSearch, as in PubMed, but not just in medicine. Finally, the future of open access models on the web must be flexible enough to accomodate new means of findability - ie. algorithms, tagging, folksonomies, social software - but continue to build on the tried-and-true tenets of library science.

This is our future. cheers, Dean

U of Tennessee Libraries Launch All-OA Academic Press

Kudos to the University of Tennessee Libraries for launching an all-OA Academic Press! More details available from Peter Suber on Open Access News

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Towards a Continuum of Scholarship

Newly posted to E-LIS and DLIST is a very interesting and thoughtful paper and presentation by OA Librarian Blog team member Marcus Banks. Marcus takes a very long-term of the transformative potential of open access, going back to 1966 with the U.S. Department of Education making ERIC freely available, and looking far into the future, when the increasing availability of grey literature thanks to institutional repositories will make the distinction between grey and non-grey literature disappear.

This paper is highly recommended reading for the OA advocate, even the well-read OA advocate, as Marcus covers a number of concepts and key historical pieces that we don't hear about all the time, such as the scholars who began publishing freely available online journals in the 90's on their own, and Dr. Harold Varmus' 1999 proposal for e-Biomed, which eventually inspired PubMedCentral. Much important health literature is actually grey literature; making this body of work more available is a very important, not peripheral function for institutional repositories.

Banks, Marcus A. (2005) Towards a continuum of scholarship : the eventual collapse of the distinction between grey and non-grey literature. In Farace, Dominic, Eds. Proceedings GL7 : Seventh International Conference on Grey Literature, Nancy (France).

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Canadian Public Domain Registry Launched

Access Copyright and Creative Commons Canada have joined forces to launch a comprehensive registry of public domain Canadian works. The aim of the project is to facilitate open access to freely available works. As Marcus Bornfreund of Creative Commons Canada notes, ""Canada has a rich cultural heritage of literature, music and fine art that is in the public domain just waiting to be freely enjoyed."

Click here for information about this exciting project.

Problems of Quality in Digital Libraries

Metadata and data quality problems in the digital library by Jeff Beall has been published in the Journal of Digital Information 6 (3).

This short paper builds on research from diverse areas such as descriptive cataloging, data and information perspectives from many contexts and types of information systems, information retrieval, and technical communication, besides digital libraries. Three levels of data quality, absolute data quality, faithful reproduction data quality, and born digital data quality, are proposed. A typology of errors is illustrated with examples, a small study is reported, and some solutions for fixing data quality errors are described. Jeff recommends two further areas of research: "First, the development of a standardized method for calculating and comparing data quality among different databases would help digital library managers measure data quality and focus on data that needs remediation. Second, more research into the error rate of scanning of textual objects is needed. Research is needed to determine whether the error rates of optical character recognition are acceptable and to what extent they hinder searching and document access."

Jeff Beall is Catalog Librarian, Auraria Library, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. A skywatcher, his picture of Mercury taken last month was featured on one of the NASA websites.

OA @ BCLA Conference (a speaker's plug)

Brian Owen (Simon Fraser University Library), Andrew Waller (University of Calgary Library) and myself (a research librarian at Canada Border Services Agency) will be talking about open access at the BCLA Conference "Sharing a Vision: The Power of Collaboration", in Burnaby, BC (April 20-22, 2006).

Our session, called "Open Access: Three Perspectives", will focus on three aspects of OA -- the library as publisher, the librarian as archivist, and the role of open access in the careers of upcoming professionals. We'll try to make it informative, interesting, and entertaining. We really hope you can join us (but we'll understand if you can't).

LIS education crisis: Practitioners respond

In Practitioners and Library Education: A Crisis of Understanding published in the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 46(4):pp. 313-320, internationally respected library leader Carla Stoffle and budding librarian Kim Leeder respond to Crying Wolf; the only crisis in LIS is one where practitioners have failed to understand the needs of LIS education.

They remind us of our disciplinary past. For example, they cite a 1985 article in Library Journal by Samuel Rothstein which "presented “An Anthology of Abuse,” documenting in excerpts the criticism LIS programs endured over the course of ninety-four years between 1887 and 1981." An anecdote about librarian reactions to the closing of the Columbia University program is also sad.

Their standpoint is provocative: "It is our position that the greatest problem with LIS programs is the fact that many practitioners do not understand the goals of library education, the demands under which these programs operate, or the standards to which they are held. Practitioners want to dictate a curriculum based on their interests or the hiring needs of their particular libraries, without acknowledging the tremendous range of subject matter that these schools must address in only 36 to 42 hours of coursework."

To their credit, Stoffle and Leeder describe specific ways in which practitioners can work with LIS schools and faculty. They conclude: "The trouble is that if practitioners continue the loud and destructive criticism, and if they do not step up to the plate to offer real resources and financial support, they will create a self-fulfilling prophesy: LIS programs that cannot succeed, and a real decline in library education. Taking a more constructive (though not prescriptive) approach to dealing with concerns about library education will better serve everyone involved, including the schools, students, and practitioners."

Carla Stoffle is Dean of the University of Arizona Libraries and the Center for Creative Photography, home to the acclaimed Living the Future conference. Kim Leeder is Special Assistant to the Dean.

March Open Access Newsletter Available

The March 2006 Open Access Newsletter is now available. Peter Suber highlights the efforts to strengthen the NIH Public Access Policy, and talks about:

Three gathering storms that could cause collateral damage for open access - the webcasting treaty, opposition to net neutrality, and the end to free e-mail. This is a really good, easy-to-understand summary of some of what I see as the key policy issues of our times, issues which will affect basic human freedoms and library services as a whole, not just open access.

and more...