Ray English, or: the Open Access Genie

Of the many great pleasures of this year's Charleston conference - one of the highlights, for me, was the opportunity to meet the opening keynote speaker Ray English.

Ray's topic, building on the conference theme of Unintended Consequences, was Unintended Consequences of the Profit Motive: Or Why the Open Access Genie is Out of the Bottle.

In a nutshell, Ray is questioning whether the focus on profit - and the subsequent price increases for serials so far above inflation that today's 8% increases (still, far above inflation) are portrayed as "good news"- is the reason behind the unleashing of the open access genie.

This inquisitive open access librarian, meanwhile, is wondering: is Ray English the open access genie?

Ray has been one of the leaders of two of the most active associations in open access, since their inception: SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Research Coalition, and the Association of College and Research Librarians (ACRL) Scholarly Communications Committee (currently co-chaired by Joyce Ogden and John Ober).

In the words of Rick Johnson, Founding Executive Diretor of SPARC and currently SPARC Senior Advisor:

Ray has been a chief contributor almost since the founding of SPARC. As a member of the SPARC Working Group in 1998-99 and the SPARC Steering Committee since 2000, he played a crucial role in charting and guiding SPARC's course. He was -- and continues to be -- instrumental in introducing SPARC to libraries beyond ARL, which account for more than half of SPARC's membership. He has been a vital collaborator with SPARC staff in efforts to raise the profile of scholarly communication issues and build support for constructive change.

From my vantage point, Ray’s efforts appear to have been the catalyst for ACRL’s strategic engagement with scholarly communications issues. He is a natural coalition builder, and so it was only logical that a strong collaborative bond between the SPARC and ACRL scholarly communications initiatives would be a product of his efforts. He has served as the key link in the allied efforts of SPARC and ACRL. He has been a leader within the Open Access Working Group (OAWG), a SPARC-organized framework for collective advocacy of open access as a public policy matter. And now, of course, he is the chair of SPARC, following in the footsteps of Ken Frazier and Jim Neal.

Ray has been especially energetic in his support of expanded public access to taxpayer-funded research. He has been tireless in his efforts to mobilize library support and communicate this to the U.S. Congress. Ray’s work to leverage the influence of ACRL members across the nation has been absolutely essential.

Even when it comes to less glamorous activities, Ray is always generous with his time and support. For example, he has played an invaluable role in helping frame the SPARC-ACRL Forum programs at the ALA midwinter and annual conferences. His contributions invariably make our communications programs more topical and incisive and stir interest in important issues facing academic libraries.

Bottom line: he's amazing. I benefitted gratefully from his wise counsel throughout my years as SPARC's director.

SPARC did not begin as an organization for open access advocacy, of course - rather, the original purpose was, and remains transformational change in scholarly communications. In Ray's words, Open access emerged as a visible movement after SPARC got started and it's clearly become the most powerful strategy for transformational change; but we need to continue to address other issues in scholarly communications, such as finding ways to introduce competition into a marketplace that has not been feeling the effects of this force.

Ray's advice for the OA Librarian?
I think the most important thing anyone in the US can do at this point is to support the Federal Research Public Access Act. There are a variety of ways to do that, from individual letters to Congress to developing more organized support. In terms of access to information I think it's probably the most important bill that's ever been introduced into Congress. I'd also encourage all librarians to work at the campus level to inform / educate faculty about scholarly communications issues. The ACRL / ARL Scholarly Communications Institute is a great way to develop strategies and plans for doing that.

The ACRL / ARL Scholarly Communications Institutes fill up fast - the deadline for the December Institute was August 15th. Watch for the next one - and register early!

For all your contributions to transforming scholarly communications, Ray - past, and hopefully long into the future - thank you.

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

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Special Award: Non-Librarian Working for Our Cause

Charleston Advisor has issued a special award to Peter Suber as a Non-Librarian Working for our Cause, for his work on the Open Access News blog and SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

Congratulations, Peter - very well deserved!!!

Several of the other Readers' Choice Awards are open-access related:

Hybrid Open Access is recognized as the Best Contract Option;

Google News Archive is the Best New Product

and Flickr wins a Best Content award.

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.

Great Idea # 1 from Charleston: Institutional Repositories

Anthony Ferguson of Hong Kong University, one of the plenary speakers from the final day of the recent Charleston conference, presented his top 10 great ideas to take away and present at home as if they were his own. # 1 on Tony's list? Institutional repositories. Specifically, collaborative institutional repositories, or, a single IR for Hong Kong's 8 universities.

Hong Kong should unite with China's open access movement to require the results of all research supported by either government to be self-archived. One thing to stress with the Hong Kong government is that IR's will not only facilitate the sharing of research information between scholars, but also with the public, who have no access to research journals.

Other great ideas:
#2: hand held devices - not ideal.
#3: incorporate web 2.0 into our integrated library systems
#4: get our library stuff in our students' path
#5: redesign our library web page
#6: publicly available rights management database for e-book collections
#7: make porting library content to course management systems a #1 priority
#8: don't forget the importance of books!
#9: datasets: we need to recruit or reassing an existing staff member to work with datasets
#10: get publishers to sponsor scholarly brain tunes

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 in Practice

With all the talk about open access these days, it may not be obvious that the role of the advocate is the tip of the iceberg. The real size and strength of the open access movement is best measured by the very great many people whose work focuses on implementing open access, not talking about it!

In a recent presentation at the Charleston 2006 Conference, Open Access in Practice, several of us talked about what we are doing to implement open access.

George Machovec of the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL) talked about open access linking and listing for CARL members, who share access to 80 open access title lists through Gold Rush. George is also Managing Editor of the for-profit Charleston Advisor, which practices an interesting twist on the author payment model for OA: some of the reviews from each Advisor are OA - and it is the author who is paid (an honorarium). Charleston Advisor also has a generous author copyright policy, which facilitates author self-archiving.

Heather Whitehead of the Colorado School of Mines described the process she and her colleagues employed in creating a specialized open access journal list, which is shared with the other CARL members through Gold Rush. The Colorado School of Mines list includes specialized titles not (yet?) in DOAJ. Audience members encouraged Heather to share her list with DOAJ! In turn, Heather encouraged audience members to think about creating and sharing other specialized lists. None of us can vet and select all of the open access resources by ourselves - but if we work together, who knows what we can accomplish?

As for me, it was my great pleasure to talk about how we librarians are sharing our own work through E-LIS: the Open Archive for Library and Information Science. As a voluntary collaboration of editors from all over the world, E-LIS is not only a model for sharing for librarians; in my opinion, it is a model for how we can work together in a global society. I talk about some of the benefits of E-LIS for searchers and for depositing authors.

We conclude with some notes about the reality of open access - the substantial, and growing resources, and what this means for librarians. Much of our work is exactly the same in the open access environment. We connect people with information - whether the information is purchased, or freely available. We build collections, through careful selection and preservation; again, it does not matter whether or not the resources are purchased.

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.

Physics: well on the way to full OA

Physics looks to be well on the way to a full open access publishing model for scholarly communications, backed by a consortium led by CERN. This is one of the more remarkable stories about open access today. Details and Peter Suber's comments are available 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.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: Domain Change

There has been a domain change to Charles' Bailey's Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography - for details, see Digital Koans.

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.

October 2006: the month of the mandate!

The November issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter is online.

The story of the month: mandates! As Peter Suber puts it: We've never had a month like October 2006. Depending on how you count, more OA mandates came into being in October 2006 than in all previous months combined. I count six adopted mandates, two proposed mandates, two adopted near-mandates, and one adopted mandate limited to data. That comes to eleven actions in five countries (UK, Austria, Canada, the US, and China).

Wow!

Peter also begins to explore the phenomenon of the no-fee open access journal. An interesting finding of the Kaufmann-Wills report was that fewer of half of open access journals charge processing fees; in fact, OA journals are less likely to charge fees than subscription-based journals.

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.

Poised for change: Rick Johnson

The scientific paper and its historic container, the journal, are poised for change. The possibilities and demands of science together with new enabling technologies are just too compelling to resist ~

So says Richard Johnson, in Will Research Sharing Keep Pace with the Internet?. The Journal of Neuroscience 26(37):pp. 9349-9351, recently self-archived in E-LIS.

The world wide web has opened up potential for scholarly communications that go far beyond open access to the scholarly peer-reviewed journal article, an item born in the print era and bearing the limitations of print, even when transferred to the web. It is now possible for researchers to work together and share information in ways that go far beyond the limitations of print, such as publishing of data for re-use and ease with which people from different disciplines and different areas of the world can work together.

Rick talks about the gridlock that has slowed change in academic, a gridlock that flows from the prestige culture of the university. The movement by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) towards policy involving physical products of research and data, as well as open access to the peer-reviewed literature, is presented as a potential means of breaking the gridlock.

Rick Johnson was the founding Executive Director of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Research Coalition, and currently SPARC Senior Advisor, is one of the pioneers of Creating Change in scholarly communications, and well as one of the early leaders of the open access movement, one of the participants in the meeting that led to the Budapest Open Access Initiative , a defining moment in open access history.

This article is only one of the articles Rick has recently self-archived in E-LIS. Thank you for your leadership - now, and for all these years, Rick. And thank you for sharing your work through E-LIS.
_____________________________________________________

If you, too, are poised for change, please consider joining the SPARC Open Data Discussion List, with moderator Peter Murray-Rust.


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

Open Access Update

Charles Bailey has updated Open Access Update - a great way to search many open access resources.

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.

New OA Information Literacy Journal: Call for Papers

Communications in Information Literacy, a forthcoming new open access journal, has just issued a Call for Papers.

Thanks to Laurie the Librarian.

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.

ProQuest offers OA option for theses

ProQuest now offers an open access option for publishing theses - a little more expensive than their traditional thesis publishing services, but at $150 total, including traditional fees and an addition $95 for open access, for a doctoral thesis, for publishing and ongoing preservation, this does seem pretty reasonable.

Note: this is not an error. The price listed on the ProQuest web site is $150, one hundred and fifty dollars - total publishing cost, including open access, for a doctoral thesis...


Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News for the alert.

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.

LISZen

LISZen is a search tool using google custom search to search over 500 LIS-related blogs - including OA Librarian!

Thanks to 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.

E-LIS Introduces Usage Statistics for Authors

* Apologies for cross-posting *

We are glad to announce that a new Statistics module has been implemented in E-LIS, E-prints in Library and Information Science. The purpose of the statistics is to promote E-LIS repository and authors self-archiving as well, by demonstrating the accessibility and usage of deposited documents by access and downloads .

Usage statistics (abstracts, downloads) are now available by the following elements:

• Most viewed eprints in the last four weeks
• Most viewed eprints in this year
• Most viewed eprints in the last year
• Most viewed eprints in all years
• Repository-wide statistics by year/month
• Repository-wide statistics by country

You can see the implementation of the Statistics at http://eprints.rclis.org/. The use of statistics is basic for the development of Open Acess Model and for the achievement of our first objective: to promote self-archiving among researchers.

Some examples of statistics results are the following:
• Prosser, David C. ( 2003) Scholarly communication in the 21st century : the impact of new technologies and models. Serials : the journal for the serials community 16(2):pp. 163-167 .
• Suber, Peter (2006) Open Access in the United States, in Jacobs, Neil, Eds. Open Access : Key strategic, technical and economic aspects. Chandos Publishing .
• Estivill Rius, Assumpció and Abadal Falgueras, Ernest and Franganillo, Jorge and Gascón García, Jesús and Rodríguez i Gairín, Josep Manuel (2005) Uso de metadatos Dublin Core en la descripción y recuperación de artículos de revista digitales = Use of Dublin Core metadata for describing and retrieving digital journals . In Proceedings DC-2005 International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, Madrid (Spain).
• Parmar, Arvind Singh and Kumar, Sanghmitra A. and Prakash, Thushara (2004) Bibliometric analysis of information seeking behaviour related literature

We encourage other repositories to implement statistics for each archived document. E-LIS uses EPrints Software module, but also DSpace has developed an Add-On for Statistics.

Some comments to the use of the statistics in E-LIS are the following:

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

"All authors crave impact - we hope that what we write will affect readers and will make a difference. However, often it is difficult to tell if our work has even been read. Now we have a clue. The newly implemented download statistics in E-LIS tell me fascinating stories about the usage of my work - papers that I thought 'old news' are still being downloaded, the geographical distribution of readers is greater than I would have guessed. This is a wonderful tool for both authors and readers and shows, once again, the power of self-archiving. Now all I need to know is what the readers thought of my work!"
David Prosser
SPARC Europe

"Having statistics for each article posted in E-LIS can be a valuable tool for the study of the development of the intellectual production in librarianship and information science. This and the use of bibliometric techniques would help us assess library development around the world…"
Julio Santillan Aldana
Responsible of the open access journal Biblios
E-LIS Editor for Peru

"The Eprint Statistics feature is an impressive new addition to E-LIS. It presents clear and immediate data on use of documents in the repository, something every author wants to see. I've found myself checking the statistics on my documents regularly and have also discovered that it's a very effective recruitment feature for E-LIS; colleagues who have never deposited in E-LIS have done so very soon after seeing the Eprints Statistics function in action".
Andrew Waller
Author and E-LIS Editor for Canada

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

For any information about the implementation do not hesitate to contact us.

Best Regards,

E-LIS Team

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 vs. IRs

Which gets mentioned more on web pages? To find out, go to GoogleDuel here.

Higher Education and Library Leader Voice Support for FRPAA

Announcement from SPARC - with thanks to Peter Suber, Open Access News:

Washington, DC - In remarks at a forum on "Improving Access to Publicly Funded Research," leaders of major higher education and library organizations voiced their support for the goals of recent measures to expand public access to research funded by the US Government. The forum was co-sponsored by Association of American Universities (AAU), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).

"I fully support the aims and the specifics of the Cornyn/Lieberman Federal Research Public Access Act [FRPAA]," said David Shulenburger, Vice President for Academic Affairs of NASULGC. Introduced last May, FRPAA (S.2695) would require all US federal agencies that fund over $100 million on external research to ensure the resulting peer-reviewed research articles are available free on the Internet within six months of publication. "Scholars and the public are on the right side of this matter. Cornyn/Lieberman should become law."

Shulenburger rejected claims by some publishers that open access to research articles after a six-month embargo, called for by FRPAA, will undermine journals and the peer review they orchestrate. "We now have significant experience with journals that voluntarily have permitted articles they published to be made available for free after delay periods ranging from zero delay to one year's and that evidence is not consistent with an apocalyptic collapse of the subscriber base." He added, "These journals would not have taken that step voluntarily had they been overly concerned about catastrophic loss of subscribers."

John Vaughn, Executive Vice President of AAU, reiterated his organization's support of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy that makes the results of NIH-funded research freely available. He said he prefers non-legislative means of improving access to federal research, such as NIH is pursuing, but noted that the prospect of a legislative solution has motivated positive movement by publishers that otherwise might not have been forthcoming.

Commenting on the growing numbers of university administrators who have spoken out recently in support of public access legislation, SPARC Executive Director Heather Joseph noted that they consider public access "mission critical" to advancing the goals of higher education institutions.

ARL Executive Director Duane Webster said, "The research library community vigorously advocates passage of FRPAA. This legislation is an essential step toward broadening access to widely needed information resources."

Librarians from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of California (UC) highlighted local efforts to aid faculty in retaining rights to deposit their works in open online archives. UC is contemplating a system-wide policy that would routinely grant to the university "a limited, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license to place in a non-commercial open-access online repository the faculty member's scholarly work published in a scholarly journal or conference proceedings." MIT has developed an addendum that authors of journal articles can use to amend journal publishers' copyright transfer agreements and secure open-archiving rights.

Commenting on the issue of rights management, CNI Executive Director Clifford Lynch said "universities need to take seriously the asymmetrical nature of negotiations" when faculty members face publishers on copyright transfer agreements. "Universities will do well to follow the lead of MIT and UC and provide institutional support for faculty negotiations. If universities negotiate on behalf of faculty this also helps publishers ultimately by reducing the number of special agreements and thus benefits the entire scholarly publishing system in the end."

Papers and slides from speakers at the forum are available at http://www.arl.org/forum06/.

###

Additional links:
Forum remarks by David Shulenburger: http://www.arl.org/forum06/shulenburger.pdf
Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA): http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2695:
List of higher education supporters of FRPAA: http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/frpaa/institutions.html
AAU Statement on the NIH Public Access Proposal: http://www.aau.edu/issues/NIHPubAccProp.pdf
NIH Public Access Policy: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

ARL
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is located on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.

SPARC
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and SPARC Europe are an international alliance of academic and research libraries and organizations working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. SPARC's advocacy, educational, and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. http://www.arl.org/sparc/.

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.

Cool new search tool for OA News!

Open Access News now features a cool new search tool! This works much better than the previous search tool.

Try it out, from the right-hand side of Open Access News. To find the URL for some of Peter's Newsletter features, try a search for newsletter and the topic. For example, "newsletter quality" brings up Peter's feature in the October Newsletter at the very top; "newsletter funding agencies" brings up Peter's feature from August listing the 10 key things to consider when examining funding agency policies.

This is useful for much more than Peter's own works, of course - it works pretty well for a search tool for my blogposts about open access, too - I can use this search to find all of Peter's reference to my Dramatic Growth of Open Access series!

Try a search for "OA Librarian" - not all the references are to our blog here...but they're all pretty interesting!

Peter built this tool using Google Custom Search; for details, see Open Access News.

Thanks Peter - this will help us all get more organized!

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.

First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference: Call for Papers

First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference: Call for Papers

The Public Knowledge Project is pleased to announce that the first international PKP conference will be held from July 11–13, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The conference will provide opportunities for those involved in the organization, promotion, and study of scholarly communication to share and discuss innovative work in scholarly publishing, with a focus on the contribution that open source publishing technologies (such as, but not restricted to, PKP's OJS, OCS, and OA Harvester) can make to improving access to research and scholarship on a global and public scale

The conference will appeal to all segments of the PKP community: software developers and technical support specialists; journal publishers, editors, and staff; librarians; and researchers in scholarly publishing. As well, prospective and first time users of OJS and other PKP software will be able to learn more about the systems and establish contacts with the PKP community. Experienced implementers and developers will have an opportunity to participate in technical sessions and exchange information. All attendees will be able to attend a range of topical sessions on trends in scholarly communication and publishing, open access initiatives, open source software, academic and library communities, and future plans for OJS, OCS, and the Open Archives Harvester.

The conference will commence with an opening keynote session on the evening of July 11 with John Willinsky, the founder of the Public Knowledge Project and creator of the OJS software. There will be several pre-conference workshops on July 11, and the main conference program will present a combination of concurrent and single track sessions concluding at noon on July 13.

The Call for Papers and link to online submission form can be found at:
http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/callforpapers.php

For more details about the conference, see the PKP Conference web site at:
http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/

best,
Heather G. Morrison
PKP Conference - Communications
Project Coordinator
BC Electronic Library Network
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Phone: 604-268-7001
Fax: 604-291-3023
Email: heather dot eln dot bc dot ca
Web: http://www.eln.bc.ca

Helping authors keep their rights!

Authors do not have to sign over copyright to publish. The only copyright that publishers need - is permission to publish!

The Scholarly Publishing and Research Coalition (SPARC) has made available an Author's Addendum, to be attached to any author copyright transfer form, clarifying that the author is retaining their rights, for example for self-archiving purposes.

The Author's Addendum, and related resources such as the Author's Rights brochures, can be found on the SPARC Author's Rights page.

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.

Persian OA / E-LIS blog

Alireza Noruzi, Iranian E-LIS Editor, has created a blog in Persian called E-LIS: Open Access Archive for LIS, which is designed to promote E-LIS and open access in general. Thanks, Alireza!

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 / U of A

The University of Alberta libraries has created a blog called Open Access Publishing Information for the University of Alberta Community.

Here is the introduction to the blog from the Welcome page:

The University of Alberta Libraries encourages University of Alberta faculty members and researchers to publish their work according to the principles of the Open Access model, to maximize the access and benefit to scientists, scholars and the public throughout the world.

To these ends, we have created this information site to provide an overview of Open Access publishing initiatives and support available for members of the University of Alberta Community.

Thanks & congratulations on a beautiful, well-organized blog to Denise Koufogiannakis, Pam Ryan, & Trish Chatterly, University of Alberta Libraries.

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.

Creative Commons Fundraising Campaign

The Creative Commons has launched its annual fundraising campaign. This year's campaign will feature stories about the innovative ways that people are making use of friendly licensing options.

If you need background info about the Creative Commons, visit this page.

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.

Campaign for Open Government

The Campaign for Open Government launched in Vancouver on September 26, 2006.

Excerpt:

Vancouver – A broad-based coalition which includes the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation, BC Civil Liberties Association, BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA), and many other groups, launched a campaign today to ensure BC’s government fulfils its long-overdue promise to be a Canadian leader in openness and accountability.

The Campaign for Open Government is focusing on the Province’s poor record of response to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. The FOI Act allows citizens and organizations to request copies of government documents.

“Our tax dollars pay for all government reports, memos, policy analysis, everything. If citizens pay for it, they have a right to know what it is,” said Sara MacIntyre of the Canadian Taxpayers Association.

“In 2004 a Committee of the Legislature reviewed the FOI Act and recommended amendments that were applauded by academics, activists, media organizations and citizens,” commented Darrell Evans of FIPA. “To date, the government has ignored these recommendations completely. On the other hand, they have made a large number of amendments and procedural changes that have made it more difficult and time consuming to obtain information.”

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.

New "For Authors" Service in DOAJ

A press release over the weekend announced that the Directory of Open Access Journals, or DOAJ (www.doaj.org), has added a service to the site that allows authors to determine whether or not there is a submission fee for an OA journal in which they are interested in publishing. Basically, the "find journals" feature now has two more search filters, one for "free to publish" titles and the other for "author pays to publish" (I think something like "submission fee required to publish" would have been a preferable way to phrase the latter but...). The press release also notes that the DOAJ folks don't have the submission fee information for all the journals and would appreciate any such information for those that they do not have.

I saw the press release on the liblicense-l list. The press release can also be found in the "news" section of the DOAJ site at http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTempl&templ=061014.

On a related note, the main page of the DOAJ site notes that there are now 2414 journals in the directory. Not too shabby, I think.

Creating New Publishing Channels Is Our Future

I've been eerily silent recently on OA Librarian because I'm teaching, taking two courses and holding down a full-time job. (Oh, yeah, and blogging AND wiki'ing. Am I crazy?) But I've been thinking of starting a new blog as a step beyond informing other librarians about open access. Don't know what I'd call it but I'd like it to be a completely new idea about librarians' direct involvement in publishing.

Remember the CMAJ scandal early in 2006? I've been working with a new editorial team on a new journal in Canadian medicine, called OpenMedicine. We're working with web designers on a new look, a new branding.

Librarians must move beyond informing each other and their users about open access (OA), I believe, to creating new forms of information dissemination, working closely with scholars and researchers and partnering on wikis, blikis and blogs. Oh, yes, and if you have time - why not start your own Open Access Journal?

I'll keep you posted on our launch date, early 2007.

Dean

DRAFT Policy on Access to CIHR-Funded Research Outputs

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has released its Draft Policy on Access to CIHR-Funded Research Outputs. Comments are requested by November 24, 2006.

This is a strong policy - kudos to CIHR! Highlights include a strong open access mandate for peer-reviewed journal articles, with no more than a 6-month publisher-imposed delay, a recommendation that researchers consider retroactively archiving their most important articles, an indication that a researcher's track record of providing access to research outputs will be considered in the future when considering requests for funding, and a requirement to deposit research data into the appropriate public database immediately on publication.

When considering your own response, it may be helpful to consult Peter Suber's Ten Lessons from the Funding Agencies Open Access Policies, in the August 2006 SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

Update October 12 -


Peter Suber's Comment, from Open Access News (please see OA News for the links):

Comment. Kudos to the CIHR for this exemplary policy.

1. The policy is an unambiguous mandate. It applies to all research funded in whole or in part by CIHR. It applies to both peer-reviewed journal articles and data files. (Although it requires some kinds of data-sharing and merely encourages others, it may be the strongest data-sharing policy by any funder to date.) It makes reasonable exceptions for royalty-producing publications like monographs. It lets grantees choose between OA journals and OA repositories, and in the latter case, between institutional and disciplinary repositories. The only condition on eligible repositories is that they be OAI-compliant. The policy uses the dual deposit/release strategy (requiring immediate deposit and permitting delayed OA release, in this case limiting embargoes to six months). And it takes a grantee's past compliance into account when evaluating new funding proposals. With one exception the policy embodies all the most important lessons from the funding agency open access policies. The exception is that CIHR doesn't offer to pay article processing fees for grantees who choose to publish in fee-based OA journals.

2. The CIHR has called for comments on its new draft. Responses are due by November 24, 2006.

3. For background, the CIHR announced that it was considering an OA policy and called for public comments back in April 2006. In June it released an update on where it stood in the process and in August (in a document dated June) it released a summary of the public comments.

4. If the CIHR draft counts as a policy, and the new OA policy in Austria counts as a mandate (it deliberately positions itself between a request and a requirement), then the CIHR policy is the seventh OA mandate to be adopted this month. There are the four new mandates from the RCUK, the expansion of the existing mandate at the Wellcome Trust, the Austrian policy, and now the CIHR. This is unprecedented momentum.

Stevan Harnad on Open Access Archivangelism reports that the CIHR proposal is 99% optimal - please see Stevan's blogpost for substantive details.

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.

Librarian Publishing Preferences and Open-Access Electronic Journals

Article of interest by Elaine Peterson, Montana State University. Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship v.7 no.2 (Summer 2006). Librarian Publishing Preferences and Open-Access Electronic Journals.

Abstract:
Librarians have often led the way in championing Open-Access (OA) journals on the Internet as an alternative to established journal titles that are subscription based. In the discipline of Library and Information Science, all types of journals continue to be published—paper and electronic, subscription-based and free. Using a survey, this article explores how some librarians view OA titles. The article collects suggestions for editors of OA journals. The article also asks questions about the relationship of OA journals to the promotion and tenure process for academic librarians.

Thanks to CARL (Canadian Assocation of Research Libraries).

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.

The Community Health Online Digital Archive Research Resource

The Community Health Online Digital Archive Research Resource (CHODARR) project will establish a permanent, publicly accessible, no-fee digital archive of research materials related to health and social welfare, with special interest in HIV, women’s health, aboriginal health, and community mental health. The unique features of CHODARR will be its genuine accessibility (via the internet), its content (focused on “grey literature”), and its diversity of stakeholders.

If you're in Vancouver October 18th, please join the BCLA Information Policy Committee for a Salon by Dr. Cindy Patton on CHODARR, featuring the project and related policy issues. If you cannot attend, but have questions for Dr. Patton, please let us know.

For details and to register for the Salon, please contact IPC Co-Chair Carla Graebner. Contact information is available on the BCLA web site - look up Committees, then IPC.

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.

October so far - a mandate a day!

So far, 6 OA mandates have come into effect this month - 4 RCUK mandates, an expansion of the Wellcome Trust mandate, and a new mandate by Austria's Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung [Fund for the Promotion of Scientific Reseach]. It's only October 8th, so this is more than a mandate per business day so far - wow!!! Thanks to Peter Suber (and Matt Cockerill) - for details and links, see: Open Access News.

Other important developments are in the works, including the European Commission's Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Market in Europe - a summary of their recent consultation process was just released. Details 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.

Fatima Darries: award-winning South African OA Librarian

Fatima Darries, South African OA Librarian activist and co-E-LIS Editor, South Africa, has been formally recognized as a role model to the rest of the Library and Information Community. Congratulations, Fatima!

Here is the text of the announcement:

On behalf of the National Executive of LIASA and Sabinet Online, we are very pleased and proud to announce that the LIASA/Sabinet Librarian of the Year for 2006 is Fatima Darries.

Fatima was nominated by the Western Cape Branch. She receives an award of R25 000 to be used for any educational purpose (further studies, visits to relevant institutions locally or internationally, attending relevant conferences). The Librarian of the Year is seen to be a role model to the rest of the Library and Information community and a person whose contributions make a lasting impact on the sector.

The motivation from the Western Cape branch reads (in part): "In addition to fulfilling all the criteria for this prestigious award, Ms Darries has been very actively involved in LIASA ... She demonstrates excellence in promoting library and
information services and the Association through her work at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and LIASA activities. Her leadership is demonstrated by the various initiatives such as the establishment of the WCHELIG (Western Cape
Higher Education Libraries Interest Group) and the successful Colloquiums hosted by this interest group. An exceptional achievement was her selection to attend the HERS-SA Academy as one of four Cape Technikon women. In 2005, Fatima was one of
six South African women to attend the Bryn Mawr Summer Institute and also presented a paper there, promoting librarians and making valuable contacts. She is also an
accredited EDT practitioner and her involvement with training is evidence of her commitment to the development of LIS professionals."

Thanks to Jennifer A. De Beer, co-Editor, E-LIS South Africa

October SPARC Open Access Newsletter

The SPARC Open Access Newsletter, released last week, features an in-depth article by Peter Suber on Open Access and Quality.

Here is a thought for a project if someone has time - perhaps a student could do this as an assignment? There are a number of in-depth articles on different topics in the SPARC Open Access Newsletter - I'd love to see a topic index.

Update October 10: Peter Suber maintains a List of Peter Suber's writings on open access, in reverse chronological order. Major newsletter features are included. For more links to Peter's works on topics other than open access (e.g. philosophy, law), see Peter Suber's home page.

Come to think of it, are indexing services beginning to look at, and include, these kinds of works? That might be a topic for a different paper...

Comment from Walt Crawford:

To the best of my knowledge, indexing sources--at least those within the library field--are not doing much with what I think of as the "formal gray literature" such as SPARC Open Access Newsletter and Cites & Insights. I've written about this in Cites & Insights ( http://citesandinsights.info), most recently in the September 2006 issue, mourning the failure of a group attempt to get more visibility for the formal gray literature.

What's formal gray literature? In this case, electronic publications with ISSNs, established missions, reasonably regular publication, and a track record--but without a price and without being refereed journals. In the view of one indexing-service head, such publications are inherently more ephemeral than publications that cost money or than publications with peer review--and that's even true for a five-year-old "gray" publication as compared to a refereed journal that dies after two issues.

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.

Staffing an Institutional Repository

Need to make a case for staff for that institutional repository?

Dorothea Salo, self-styled repository rat and author of Caveat Lector, has some great tips based on her experience, in Staffing an Institutional Repository.

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.

Strong Copyright + DRM + Weak Net Neutrality = Digital Dystopia?

The postprint of Charles Bailey's Strong Copyright + DRM + Weak Net Neutrality = Digital Dystopia? is now available. While the focus is not open access, Charles clearly and succinctly explains some of the key policy topics related to open access.

Abstract:

Three critical issues—-dramatic expansion of the scope, duration, and punitive nature of copyright laws; the ability of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems to lock-down digital content in an unprecedented fashion; and the erosion of Net neutrality, which ensures that all Internet traffic is treated equally—-are examined in detail and their potential impact on libraries is assessed. How legislatures, the courts, and the commercial marketplace treat these issues will strongly influence the future of digital information for good or ill.

Forwarded from SCHOLCOMM.

Ajit Pyati, open source and open access in libraries

We librarians are a collaborative lot - and OA Librarians are no exception. Ajit Pyati is a PhD student who would love to see open access become a reality because to him, it means a more equitable world, one more in line with the values of our profession. Ajit, an editor of the pioneering InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies in its formative years, emphasizes that he is just a part of the team. InterActions, an open access journal, was one of the first e-journals produced by the California Digital Library. Ajit is, in a way, a second-generation OA advocate, one who became involved with OA when he joined the local journal team.

Currently, Ajit is working on a PhD, studying technology development in libraries, specifically open source, and to some extent open access. The direction of Ajit's studies was influenced by a visit to Vancouver last summer, where he met John Willinsky and learned about the Public Knowledge Project, which, among other things, developed the Open Journal Systems software, a free open source publishing software in use by open access publishers around the world. Simon Fraser University Library [where I work] is a partner in OJS, and provides support and some development for the OJS software, as well as a suite of open source products called reSearcher [GODOT link resolver, CUFTS knowledgebase, CUFTS journal database (A to Z list), dbwiz (federated search tool), and more. [Disclosure: I work with the reSearcher team].

This brief introduction to Ajit's work already illustrates two key areas of support that libraries are providing for open access. The California Digital Library provides free access to and support for the bepress publishing software for California faculty, faciliating the development of open access journals by California faculty (and graduate students, in the case of InterActions). UCLA has supported the development of InterActions by providing funding for the graduate students who work on the journal. Perhaps this is a model with broader application? Funding is so important for graduate students - and isn't participating in publishing a great learning experience? Simon Fraser University Library actively contributes to the development and support of OJS, and provides hosting and support services on a cost-recovery basis.

It was my pleasure recently to meet Ajit when he came to Vancouver to interview people for his research. Ajit sees open source as an option that gives libraries more control over what we do; with open source, we do not follow developments, we lead them.

Library schools take note: this passioniate, very intelligent PhD candidate, with a temperament that strikes me as ideal for teaching, is anticipating graduation in June 2007. One example of Ajit's work, an article called WSIS: Whose Vision of an Information Society? can be found in First Monday.
Best of luck with that PhD, Ajit - I can't wait to see the results of your thesis!

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

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

BASE, the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, is a metasearch tool for the Bielefeld Digital Library. Substantial open access resources are included, both open access journals and open access archives. Searches can be limited to the free content, so this tool can be useful for everyone, not just the Bielefeld Digital Library users.

Thanks to Ilkay Holt, E-LIS Editor, Turkey.

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.

AcademicBlogs: The Academic Blog Portal

AcademicBlogs: The Academic Blog Portal is looking like a great start to a comprehensive pathfinder on this topic. There is a section for academic librarian bloggers - please add your own!

Thanks to Steve Bell, via 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.

electrified.ca

Check out electrified.ca and get excited about e-learning! electrified.ca is a new free ezine by Laurie the Librarian! The first issue features my articles About E-LIS and a tips sheet for Depositing in E-LIS. electrified.ca looks terrific - congrats to Laurie Prange of Yukon College.

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.

Still More Hybrid Journal Programs: T & F and RSC

In the last several days, both Taylor & Francis (last week) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (yesterday) have announced hybrid OA journal programs. T & F's OA option is called iOpenAccess. RSC's doesn't seem to have a snazzy name (I may have missed something). Both are the usual sort of thing; authors or other submitters can pay a fee in order for their accepted articles to be made freely available. I won't go into too many details here; Peter Suber does his usual great job and provides much information and commentary on both options on his blog (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html). There are also press releases for both:

Taylor & Francis: http://www.informa.com/corporate/investors/press_releases/2006/2006-09-28_20017377567.htm;jsessionid=783FB2EE031A3EF1293484D00ED96C8E

Royal Society of Chemisty: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/September/02100602.asp

There's more information on the RSC option at https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/3366.html and at http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/OpenScience/FAQ.asp

I will mention a few things, though. First, I noticed that both programs are not cheap; $3100 US for T & F and 1000-2500 UKP for RSC. These may be the most expensive submission fees for hybrid OA journals; will this be a deterent for some authors? Second, the T & F OA option will only apply to 175 of their STM journals. The T & F journal suite includes many social sciences and humanities titles; I wonder if OA figures into the planning for these journals? Finally, I was pleased to see that T & F will be looking at subscription costs for those journals that are included in the iOpenAccess program:

We undertake to review the subscription prices of each journal with respect to the uptake of the iOpenAccess initiative, and the relevant information will be published on each journal’s home page at www.tandf.co.uk/journals.

RSC has indicated that they may do the same.

An important final question: Which big publishers have not established a hybrid OA journal program? There may be a few but nothing comes to mind. I'll have to think about it.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Update

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an innovative open access project in more than one sense. This is a peer-reviewed philosophy encyclopedia aiming for top quality through a prestigious editorial board and invitation to write articles by the experts in a variety of areas. SEP was developed by the philosophers themselves, and is experimenting with an open access funding method with tremendous potential if successful: fundraising to create an endowment fund for ongoing access through covering SEP's modest operating costs. This fundraising effort is a collaboration between libraries, philosophy departments, U.S. funding agencies, and Stanford University. Funds contributed by libraries are matched by other donors.

If every library that can afford a specialized online encyclopedia like this were to commit about what such a resource would cost for three years of subscription, there would be more than enough for the endowment for SEP. This is what is so exciting about the model, in my opinion - just a little bit of rethinking about those purchase dollars can mean permanent change for optimum access for all.

If your library has already committed a little, have another look and see how many others are participating, and whether you could commit a little more. If your library isn't participating yet, give this some thought. For more details, see the SEP website - oh, and check out the new interface while you're there, it looks great!

Dramatic Growth of Open Access September 06 update

The Dramatic Growth of Open Access continues! I just published my September 2006 Dramatic Growth update on Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics. Here is the abstract:

The number of open access journals included in DOAJ continues to increase at a rate of about 1.5 per calendar day, while the increase in material in open access archives in showing a dramatic increase in the rate of growth, for all archives followed, as well as absolute growth. There have been some significant events in the past quarter which the author predicts will accelerate the rate of growth of OA, including funding agencies' open access policies, hybrid open access journal programs, new OA presses and significant work on models for small publishers to transition to open access.

Elsevier and Wellcome Trust Come to Agreement

The trail-blazing Wellcome Trust, one of the largest research funders in the United Kingdom, requires open access to the results of research that it funds.

On September 29, 2006 Elsevier and Wellcome announced an agreement that will allow Elsevier-published researchers to comply with the Wellcome mandate. This is wonderful news for OA advocates. As Peter Suber notes, this could be a "win-win-win."

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.

Sometimes the most open access is print

Sometimes it makes sense to drop print production as a necessary efficiency for online open access - but not for things like topographic maps, which people need access to in places where there is no interest access, and the specialized equipment for printing maps well is not common. Canadians, please note that our government is currently in the process of dropping production of print maps - for information and advocacy action suggestions, please see: http://mapsforcanadians.ca/.

Thanks to Carla Graebner.

OA Librarians and Societies: Two Perspectives

T. Scott Plutchak thinks we OA advocates are too hard on societies; you can read his blogpot It Gets Lonely Out Here. My sympathies to T. Scott, who reports to one of the very few provosts who signed the letter opposing FRPAA. This has to be a lonely situation for an OA advocate.

Dorothea Salo on Caveat Lector presents another point of view in her blogpost Unyielding opposition?. As Dorothea points out, it would be a lot easier to be supportive of scholarly societies if they did not themselves exhibit unyielding opposition to open access, FRPAA, NIH, PubChem, etc.

Personally, I am completely against this anti-OA activities on the part of some scholarly societies, but totally for the concept of scholarly societies. I think libraries should work cooperatively with societies to provide support - financial and technical, not just moral - to enable scholarly societies to transition to open access.

Another of Dorothea's points: "I may be alone in this, but I’m also irked by one specific phrase I see in scholarly publishers’ contributions to the open-access debate: “subscription-funded activities.” I’ll make my stance as clear as I know how: libraries are not responsible for supporting society activities unrelated to the scholarly literature".

You're not alone, Dorothea. When we have a scholarly communications system that has been in crisis for decades, it is irreponsible to charge more than necessary to fund other activities.

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News for pointing out these two blogposts.

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.

Google support

Here's what comes up when you google the phrase "support open access."

Digital University / Library Presses

Charles Bailey is writing a very helpful series for libraries and others serious about creating change. Digital University / Library Presses # 11 is now available on Digital Koans.

Publishing Cooperatives: An Alternative for Non-Profit Publishers

Many professional societies feel caught in a bind about open access publishing. They support the goal of freely available research, but depend on revenues from traditional subscriptions to sustain themselves.

Raym Crow, a senior consultant for SPARC, has just published an important paper about how to resolve this dilemma. He proposes that societies form publishing cooperatives rather than attempting to move completely to an open access model by themselves.

Crow builds on the work of others who have wrestled with this challenge, such as John Willinsky. He offers new hope that societies can meet their "twin imperatives of financial sustainability and mission fulfillment." That mission is to share their knowledge with the world.

Article: OA for the medical librarian

If we may blow our own horn, an article written by Heather Morrison and me has recently been published in the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (JCHLA)
(http://pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/jchla/jchla.html). Entitled "Open access for the medical librarian", the article is based on a presentation we gave at the Canadian Health Libraries Association Conference in Vancouver, BC on May 14, 2006. JCHLA has recently become an OA journal (kudos to the CHLA!) so the article can be easily accessed at http://pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/jchla/jchla27/c06-025.pdf. It can also be found at:

E-LIS: http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00007201/
Simon Fraser University institutional repository: http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/2508
University of Calgary institutional repository: https://dspace.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/43468

Take your pick!

Two OA projects that could use your help!

Tenn-Share is creating a list of Open Access Databases; please add your suggestions! Thanks to Peter Suber of Open Access News for the tip.

The Canadian Library Association's Information Commons Interest Group is building a list of Open Access Advocates Worldwide, wiki-style. Should you, or someone you know, be added to the list? If so, please register (it's fast and easy), and add names and links to contact information. Thanks to the CLA Info Commons group [disclosure: I'm a member], and to Peter Suber for the idea of expanding the Canadian list to a worldwide list.

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.

Free open source open access federated searching

An open version of the open source federated search tool dbwiz is available, for searching open access resources, thanks to Simon Fraser University Library. dbwiz is part of the open source reSearcher software suite. Comments?

[Disclosure: I work for SFU Library, and coordinate participation in reSearcher for BC academic libraries. This is a purely personal viewpoint, not endorsed by SFU library or BC ELN].

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.

Libraries and open access

Are we librarians doing our bit to support open access?

Dorothea Salo has an interesting perspective piece on libraries, librarians and open access on Caveat Lector. Dorothea talks about her work on a review of Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects.

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.

American Chemical Society: Hybrid too

Yet another commercial publisher has established a hybrid journal option for its articles. This time, it's the American Chemical Society (ACS). Beginning in October, authors in ACS journals will be able to provide free online access to their articles for a fee; this charge will range from $1,000 to $3,000 US, "depending on whether the author is an ACS member or is affiliated with an institution that subscribes to ACS journals". Authors will also be able to place their articles on their personal websites and in institutional repositories.

No word on whether or not there will be any changes to subscription costs (as there will be with the Cambridge OA project).

There is a news release about the ACS OA option at http://tinyurl.co.uk/4mug. Peter Suber, as always, has some interesting things to say about this development; see http://tinyurl.co.uk/8p86

Perhaps, soon, we'll be asking ourselves, "which commercial publishers do not have a hybrid journals program"?

Two OA Milestones in One

This month marks the beginning of the second hundred, # 101, of the SPARC Open Access News by Peter Suber! Many thanks for keeping us all informed, Peter. This issue focuses on the remarkable momentum in hybrid open access journals, with four publishers launching new programs in the last month alone!

Open-models for exchange of library research

Web 2.0 has provided librarians with collaborative technologies to improve the exchange and uptake of our own research.

To that end, we have started a wiki for LIBR534. I envision it as a knowledge-base for library school students, librarians and faculty interested in health information sources and services.

Here is UBC HealthLib-Wiki - http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca

I have loaded the shell only - think of it as a strong hull. I am working out details of the editing policy, and my formation of the Gentlemen's Wiki Administrative Club, of which I will be the cruise director. Think 21st Century on the SS Normandie.

We will customize the wiki logo, top left - soon. If you have an idea for a cool logo, let me know. Jeremiah came up with a caduceus logo, with headphones - love that. In the meantime, browse around - introduction, editing policies, etc are falling into place. - Dean

First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference: Preliminary Accouncement

First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference: Preliminary Announcement

The Public Knowledge Project is pleased to announce that the first international PKP conference will be held from July 11–13, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The conference will promote and celebrate the quality use of the PKP open source software suite – Open Journal Systems (OJS); Open Conference Systems (OCS); and the Open Archives Harvester.

Further details are available on the PKP Web Site. Ou, en français à culture.libre.ca (Merci, Olivier!)

OA Librarian types note: there will be either a preconference or conference stream relating to library roles, thanks to the OA Librarian types at SFU Library, one of the partners in PKP: Lynn Copeland, G.W. Brian Owen, and Mark Jordan, among others.

Vancouver is a beautiful city, located in the aptly named province, Beautiful British Columbia (in my opinion), and home to several of the OA Librarian blog team (Lesley Perkins, Dean Giustini, and Heather Morrison).

Open Access to Policy Poster Sessions

** as posted to Canadian listservs **

CLA's Information Policy Working Group, part of the CLA Standing Committee on Intellectual Property and Public Access, sponsored a Student Poster Session at CLA 2006, with exciting and informative results!

The student poster sessions are now available in E-LIS, the Open Archive for Library and Information Studies, along with open access sessions at CLA 2006, at:
http://tinyurl.co.uk/z22r

Congratulations and thanks to poster developers and presenters Martin Dowding, Frederic Murray, Jeremiah Saunders, Robin Featherstone, David Ley, Heather McKend, Iva Seto, and Catherine Sinnott. For those involved in LIS Education - whether as teachers or students - it's not too soon to start thinking about the 2007 posters!

cheers,

Heather Morrison
Member, CLA Information Policy Working Group

http://www.cla.ca/about/committees/informationpolicy.htm
Member, CLA Information Commons Interest Group
http://www.infocommons.ca/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Chief E-LIS Editor, Canada http://eprints.rclis.org/

Heather's comment: many thanks to all the students for sharing their work as open access, and to E-LIS for providing a venue to distribute information on these important policy topics (privacy, freedom of information, media and trade policy, info policy and public health, and intellectual property and genetically modified foods.

OhioLINK Recommends Steps to Ensure That Ohio Remains Available to Ohio Scholars

OhioLINK Recommends Steps to Ensure That Ohio Research Remains Available to Ohio Scholars

Columbus, Ohio (August 30, 2006) – Ohio faculty, scholars and researchers publish thousands of scholarly articles each year, in the world's leading scholarly journals. Yet there is no guarantee that Ohio will have access to research produced by its own scholars as the costs and quantity of scholarly journals keep rising beyond the reach of Ohio higher education. OhioLINK, a consortium of 85 academic libraries and the State Library of Ohio, has released recommendations that will help authors and their institutions retain the right to disseminate their works electronically, thereby assuring access to Ohio research for the Ohio scholarly community and beyond. The recommendation document, including a sample author publication agreement, is available for downloading at www.ohiolink.edu/journalcrisis .

OhioLINK also recommends placing research articles and related material in freely accessible digital repositories, such as its own Digital Resource Commons. This will help ensure that research published by Ohio scholars will be openly accessible for research and scholarship.

“The OhioLINK library community believes that research and works produced by Ohio scholars should remain accessible to scholars in Ohio and beyond, regardless of whether that scholar’s institution can afford to buy the published research. These recommendations move Ohio another step closer to turning that belief into a reality,” Tom Sanville, OhioLINK’s executive director, said.

Some of OhioLINK’s recommendations to Ohio institutions, faculty and other researchers include:
1. Publish in journals that have responsible rights policies whenever possible.
2. Retain the non-exclusive right to make works openly accessible and usable for the author’s own non-commercial educational and research purposes.
3. Deposit works in a campus repository or the Ohio Digital Resource Commons so that those works are available to scholars in Ohio and beyond.

In making these recommendations, OhioLINK joins many organizations around the nation and the world who are seeking to protect authors’ rights to freely disseminate their own works, including the University of California, The Boston Library Consortium and the European Commission. While many journal publishers have changed their policies to embrace an author’s right to archive and share their own works for educational and research purposes, it remains the author’s responsibility to ensure they do not sign away their rights in publisher agreements.

Kudos to OhioLINK!

Peter Suber presents an excellent summary of the key points relating to open access, and useful comments on Open Access News.

University of California Libraries supports open access and other transformative publishing models

Dear Colleagues,

I’m pleased to inform readers of this list that an updated version of the University of California Libraries Principles for Acquiring and Licensing Information in Digital Formats is now available. Building upon principles originally established by the UC Libraries in 1996, the July 2006 revision jointly developed by UC collection development and scholarly communication officers includes new principles that highlight the University’s interest in fostering a more open and sustainable scholarly communication environment. Specific principles set forth in this version include support for open access and other transformative publishing models, the right of academic authors to retain copyright to their works, and the use of multiple indicators of value as a basis on which to evaluate pricing. Other principles articulated here for the first time include support for the digitization of out-of-copyright material as an alternative to licensing where appropriate and an affirmation of the important role of third-party trusted archival repositories in the long-term preservation of digital information.

The revised principles can be found at http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/cdc/principlesforacquiring.html

Best wishes,

Ivy Anderson
Director of Collections
California Digital Library
University of California, Office of the President

Kudos, Ivy & the University of California Libraries!

Peter Suber has a very useful excerpt explaining the open access-related portions of this initiative on Open Access News.

OUP reports on Oxford Open results (so far)

A press release today from Oxford University Press reports on the first year (since July 2005) of the OUP hybrid journal program, Oxford Open. Some highlights:

• Almost 400 OA papers have been published, in 36 of the 49 journals that are participating in Oxford Open.
• 10% of the authors publishing in OUP life sciences journals have taken the OA route, with 5% of the medicine and life sciences authors and 3% of the humanities and social sciences authors doing so.
• The journal with the highest number of OA papers is Bioinformatics, which published over 50 OA papers.

As someone who pays a lot of attention to serial prices, I thought it was interesting to note that the 2007 online subscription costs for three journals, Bioinformatics, Carcinogenesis and Human Molecular Genetics, will be adjusted to reflect the number of freely available articles these publications contained in 2005-2006. This is good to see (presumably, the prices will be adjusted downward) but I wonder what the threshold is for setting a cost adjustment into motion? How many OA papers does it take to do this?

OUP is going to carry on with the Oxford Open program. The 49 journals that are presently involved will continue and it is expected that other Oxford titles will join.

The Movement for Open Access Law

In an important recent paper, "The Movement for Open Access Law", Michael W. Carroll argues that the time is right for open access to legal scholarship. The paper offers a good summation of the overall argument for open access, as well as specific insights about the applicability of OA to legal writings. As a bonus, it is highly readable and engaging.

Cornell University's Open Access Press Within D-Space

Cornell University has an operational open access press within their D-Space Community. More information can be found in Charles Bailey's blogpost, Digital University / Library Presses, Part 5: Internet-First University Press. If you're interested in how libraries can directly support change in scholarly communications through new publishing opportunities, read the whole series! Thanks, Charles.

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.

Research: acquisition of open access research articles

Arthur Sale, Professor of Computing Research at the University of Tasmania (Australia), has researched how authors upload their papers in universities with mandatory deposit policies.

Amongst the significant findings is that by six months after publication date, more than 80% of authors have already deposited. Also it seems to take 2-3 years for a university mandatory policy to become fully institutionalized, though the process is almost instant with departmental mandates. The data is drawn from three sources: [1] University of Tasmania, [2] Queensland University of Technology in Australia, and [3] the University of Southampton in the UK.

The preprint of this paper is available in the UTas ePrints repository:
The acquisition of open access research articles (2006)

(originally found on SERIALST-L)

Nearly 80% of ARL Libraries either have or are planning IRs!

According to the latest SPEC kit, Institutional Repositories, nearly 80% of ARL Libraries either have, or are in the process of planning, an institutional repository. The average expenditure is high, but ironically, the majority of implementers report managing without a dedicated budget.

To me, this reflects a common irony in the wired world; that is, one can spend a great deal on a project, while your neighbour sets up on a shoestring. Sometimes the big spender ends up with a better product - but not always!

The front page and executive summary of this, and other SPEC kits from Issue 200, is now freely available, in another example of an OA-hybrid. To me, this represents real progress towards OA in a format (monograph) which is not truly part of the OA target. The SPEC Survey program is highly regarded amongst academic libraries, encompassing timely, key management topics in academic libraries, with the high response rate of the Institutional Repository survey (71%) being typical.

Many thanks to Charles Bailey on Digital Koans.

Thanks as always to Peter Suber, and kudos to ARL!

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.

When you are at home in a library, you can learn anything

The title of this post is from an open access Library Reports assignment - written by none other than open access advocate Peter Suber! This is an assignment that I think many librarians will enjoy, which talks about using libraries throughout the semester, with aims like getting comfortable with the library.

For some other interesting ideas of Peter's, listen to the podcast interview of Peter Suber with John Udell - the basics of open access are covered by those who need them, but also topics like blogging and open access. Oh, and libraries and librarians are mentioned several times, too. Well worth listening to, even for those with some expertise on OA. Details and the links can be found 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.

Open Access Archives, Metadata, and Authority Control

It should come as no surprise that the quality of searching in those open access archives will be greatly enhanced through attention to key metadata, such as standardized entry of author names - what we librarians have done for years, in the guise of authority control.

This has come up recently on the American Scientist Open Access Forum under the topic about true names...searching and measuring (look after the end of the alphabet for this topic, as it begins with a non-capitalized letter). Thanks to Librarian and Professor Sheila Corrall at the University of Sheffield for making the connection with authority control.

Those interested in continuing this discussion are invited to do so, at an operationally-oriented open archives list, such as OAI-General - or, perhaps a library-oriented list?

In my opinion, the key values and skills of librarianship - preserving information, making it accessible, organizing it and helping users to find what they need, whether immediately (reference) or at any time (informaiton literacy) - will be every bit as necessary in the open access environment, if not moreso, than in the subscriptions / purchasing world.

OA Blogdiggity

Just for fun, or to get serious about it, check out Blogdigger Groups to combine the contents of two or more blogs on a topic (say, for example, open access). Here are the results for the group on "open access and open archive."

SHERPA Juliet, and the UK Natural Environment Research Council OA Mandate

The UK Natural Enviroment Research Council is the latest funding agency to announce an OA Mandate, NERC Guidance on Access to Research Outputs.

Details can be found on the new SHERPA Juliet site, which lists and summarizes research funders' open access policies.

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News, who comments that, this is wonderful news, and with one exception, this policy is all that one could ask.

From my point of view, this is wonderful news, period! The one exception that Peter refers to is reference to publishers' embargo periods. My reading of the policy is that it reflects a willingness to accept current publisher practices, but reserves the right to shift to a stronger policy in the event of publisher backsliding.

Many thanks to Bill Hubbard and the SHERPA crew for Juliet!

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.

The hybrid OA announcements continue: APS FREE TO READ

Today's hybrid OA announcement is from the American Physical Society (APS). They are expanding their OA article program to "any article or group of articles published in the Journals of the American Physical Society back to 1893". The name of this project is FREE TO READ.

The submission fees in the FREE TO READ program will vary, ranging from $975 US in the Physical review journals (A-E) to $1300 US for Physical review letters. The cost for Reviews of modern physics will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

An interesting paragraph appears in the announcement:

"The FREE TO READ initiative represents a path by which APS could gradually transition to full Open Access. If the community (especially institutions and funding agencies) shows continued support for this initiative, a sustainable level may be reached in which the APS can recover its costs, offset its risks, and eliminate subscriptions for some or all of its journals."

Sounds like the folks at APS are thinking ahead a bit. Not a bad thing.

Unlike many of the other recent hybrid OA announcements, there is a webpage to reference. There's a FREE TO READ FAQ at http://publish.aps.org/FREETOREAD_FAQ.html.

Book review: "The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access To Research and Scholarship"

In the most recent issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Marian Burright (Collection Management Librarian for Life Sciences, University of Maryland) reviews the book "The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access To Research and Scholarship" written by John Willinsky.

In his book, John Willinsky explains the advent of open access and situates OA within the economics of scholarship by covering online journal publishing, copyright law issues, alternative publishing venues as well as the ten "flavors" of open access and their economic models.

As Marian Burright highly recommends this read to every academic librarian, follow this link for the complete book review: http://www.istl.org/06-summer/review2.html

The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship. John Willinsky. MIT Press Cambridge: MA, 2006. List Price: $34.95.
ISBN: 0-262-23242-1

Still another hybrid OA journal option: BMJ Unlocked

I try to be a good serials librarian and blog journal-related OA announcements, Recently, I've paid particular attention to announcements about hybrid journal programs but I missed this one. I'll mention it in brief here.

On August 3, BMJ Journals announced that they now have an option by which authors with papers accepted for publication by a BMJ journal can pay to make their papers open access. This program is called Unlocked. Unlocked employs a two-tier pricing system, charging either £1,200/$2,220 US/€1,775 or £1,700/$3,145 US/€2,515, depending on the journal.

Unlike some of the other recently announced hybrid programs (e.g. Elsevier, Wiley, Cambridge), it looks like the Unlocked option applies to all of the titles in the BMJ suite of journals; no list of participating titles was given in the announcement.

And yes, the BMJ annoucement does use the words "open" and "access".

Another hybrid OA journal program: Cambridge Open Option

On the heels of the Wiley announcement about their New Funded Access Service (see my August 8 post) and a similar announcement from BMJ (see the separate post that follows about this), Cambridge UniversityPress has announced that they too are establishing a hybrid OA option. As with the offerings from other publishers, authors who have had articles accepted for publication in certain Cambridge journals can opt to make their articles openly accessible for a charge of $2700 US or 1500 pounds. The journals included in this program are:

Biofilms
Cardiology in the young
Development and psychopathology
Epidemiology and infection
Experimental agriculture
Expert reviews in molecular medicine
Genetical research
Geological magazine
Journal of agricultural science
Journal of plasma physics
Journal of tropical ecology
Laser and particle beams
Psychological medicine
Visual neuroscience
Zygote

A couple of interesting notes about the Cambridge Open Option:

1) Unlike the announcements from Elsevier and Wiley about their hybrid OA options, the Cambridge announcement actually uses the term "open access" a few times.

2) Unless I've missed something, this is the first announcement of this nature that has included mention of adjusting the subscription costs for hybrid OA journals. This is nice to see:

"It is anticipated that the subscription prices of the participating journals will be adjusted in the future to take into account the impact of the Open Access publishing model. The level of change will depend on the uptake of the Cambridge Open Option by authors. Any subscription price
changes will occur on a title by title basis."

I haven't been able to find a web page for the Cambridge Open Option but the press release is making the rounds on lists (I saw it on the American Scientist Open Access Forum) plus Peter Suber has blogged the news as well.

Aug. 15 deadline alert for ACRL / ARL Institute on Scholarly Communication

Apply now for the second ACRL/ARL Institute on Scholarly Communication December 6-8, 2006, at Duke University, Durham, NC. The deadline for application is August 15, 2006. Acceptance to the Scholarly Communication program is competitive and limited to 100 individuals.

This jointly sponsored institute offers tools and techniques to build a scholarly communication program or move an existing one to the next level. Participants will assess their campus environment before the institute and engage in 2½ intensive days of active learning. During the institute, participants will develop customized program plan components to implement at their home institutions. The Institute sponsors are seeking participation from a wide range of academic libraries from community colleges to research institutions. Larger institutions are encouraged to propose teams that reflect various institutional perspectives, such as librarians, library administrators, faculty, and campus administrators.

The Friends of the ACRL are supporting 4 scholarships to cover the $600 registration fee for the institute. Scholarships will be awarded to individuals from diverse backgrounds and those employed at smaller institutions or serving professionally underrepresented minorities.

Complete details about the program as well as the online application form and instructions can be found at www.ala.org/acrl/events (Click “ACRL/ARL Institute on Scholarly Communication”). Applicants can direct questions concerning the program or application process to Kara Malenfant at 312-280-2510; kmalenfant@ala.org.

Wiley's "New Funded Access Service"

Following on Elsevier's footsteps, John Wiley & Sons have announced a program that seems to be an author-fee OA option but, like Elsevier, doesn't use the words "open access". According to the announcement, "authors will have the option of paying a fee to ensure that their article
is available to non-subscribers upon publication via Wiley InterScience" (www.interscience.wiley.com). Interestingly, Wiley is aiming this service at authors with papers that have been accepted for publication who also have to deposit their papers in an archive. Even more interesting, "Wiley will deposit the final PDF of the article into the funder's archive". The cost of making a Wiley article accessible to "non-subscribers" is $3,000 US.

Again, as with the Elsevier "sponsored articles" service, Wiley's "New Funded Access Service" option is only applicable to a segment of journals on the Interscience platform, at least initially. These are:

American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A
American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B - Neuropsychiatric Genetics
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Anatomical Record
Arthritis and Rheumatism
Arthritis Care and Research
Bioessays
Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton
ChemBioChem
Developmental Dynamics
Electrophoresis
European Eating Disorders Review
European Journal of Immunology
genesis
Genetic Epidemiology
Glia
Hippocampus
Human Brain Mapping
Human Mutation
International Journal of Cancer
International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry
International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research
Journal of Basic Microbiology
Journal of Cellular Biochemistry
Journal of Cellular Physiology
Journal of Comparative Neurology
Journal of Gene Medicine
Journal of Medical Virology
Journal of Neurobiology
Journal of Neuroscience Research
Journal of Pathology
Journal of Separation Science
Macromolecular Bioscience
Microscopy Research and Technique
Molecular Nutrition and Food Research
Molecular Reproduction and Development
NMR in Biomedicine
Pediatric Pulmonology
Proteins
Proteomics
Proteomics - Clinical Applications
Signal Transduction
Statistics in Medicine
Synapse
Yeast

I couldn't find a web page giving more information but the announcement is making the rounds on lists. I saw the announcement on liblicense-l on the late afternoon (MST) of August 8.

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.

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.