Our first meeting was held at the University of Liege on 18 October 2007 (The Liege Convention) and subsequent meetings have furthered the development of the organisation and enabled planning for the future.
This website will report on developments of relevance to the mission of EnablingOpenScholarship and will provide news and details of forthcoming meetings, briefings and discussion sessions.
Membership is available to approved institutions and individuals who have an interest in furthering the aims of the organisation. Anyone who is interested in enrolling their institution as a member should provide their details on the membership page. Those with enquiries are invited to email the convenor of the group, Dr Alma Swan (contact details) .
For more details about EOS events and activities , and to check whether there is one happening near you, please follow this link.
By Isaac Gilman
A publishing partnership between the libraries at Pacific University (Ore.) and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo will feature a new open access, peer-reviewed journal.
A joint publishing partnership between the libraries at Pacific University (Ore.) and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo has announced a new open access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to library-led scholarly communication initiatives, online publishing and digital projects.
The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication will provide a focused forum for library practitioners to share ideas, strategies, research and pragmatic explorations of library-led initiatives related to such areas as institutional repository and digital collection management, library publishing/hosting services and authors’ rights advocacy efforts. As technology, scholarly communication, the economics of publishing, and the roles of libraries all continue to evolve, the work shared in JLSC will inform practices that strengthen librarianship.
Marisa Ramirez (Cal Poly) and Isaac Gilman (Pacific University) will co-edit the journal in collaboration with an editorial board composed of experienced and respected library practitioners.
Founding board members include Allyson Mower (University of Utah), Amy Buckland (McGill University), Ann Lally (University of Washington), Faye Chadwell (Oregon State University), JQ Johnson (University of Oregon), Katherine Johnson (California Institute of Technology), Lisa Schiff (California Digital Library), Michael Boock (Oregon State University), Pamela Bluh (University of Maryland, School of Law), Paul Royster (University of Nebraska), Rebecca Kennison (Columbia University), Sarah Shreeves (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Shawn Martin (University of Pennsylvania), Susan Wells Parham (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Terry Owen (University of Maryland).
Just as the core library areas of resource sharing, collection management, cataloging/metadata, instruction and public services have journals dedicated to best practices, there is a need for this new core area of library services to be specifically represented in the literature.
The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication will meet that need – providing a shared intellectual space for scholarly communication librarians, institutional repository managers, digital archivists, digital data managers and related professionals.
The first issue is planned for early 2012, with rolling publication of quarterly issues thereafter. All content will be open access upon publication and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
As part of our ongoing article-level metrics program, we’re delighted to announce that all seven PLoS journals will now provide online usage data for published articles. With this addition, the suite of metrics on PLoS articles now includes measures of: online usage; citations from the scholarly literature; social bookmarks; blog coverage; and the Comments, Notes and ‘Star’ ratings that have been made on the article.
As discussed recently, we at PLoS feel that there is much to be gained from assessing research articles on their own merits rather than on the basis of the journal (and its impact factor) where the work happens to be published. Until recently, however, readers have simply not had suitable tools to give them any indication of the quality (or ‘impact’) of an individual article. With the advent of online publishing and a burgeoning array of third parties providing information on scholarly articles, it has finally become feasible to provide meaningful article-level metrics and indicators for readers.
via the online questionnaire (
http://www.lexisnexis.com/dpartner/process.asp?qs_id=4765 ) or send
your comments to survey@cell.com.
Article Prototype #1 ( http://beta.cell.com/erickson )
( http://beta.cell.com/erickson )
Article Prototype #2 ( http://beta.cell.com/hochstim )
( http://beta.cell.com/hochstim )
Allow the prototype pages to fully load before clicking. The browser
Back button is not supported in an article. As prototypes, some links
lead nowhere and some functionality may not be applied consistently
throughout the entire article.
Cell Press and Elsevier have launched a project called Article of the
Future that is an ongoing collaboration with the scientific community to
redefine how the scientific article is presented online. The project's
goal is to take full advantage of online capabilities, allowing readers
individualized entry points and routes through the content, while using
the latest advances in visualization techniques. We have developed
prototypes for two articles from Cell to demonstrate initial concepts
and get feedback from the scientific community.
KEY FEATURES OF THE PROTOTYPES:
A hierarchical presentation of text and figures so that readers can
elect to drill down through the layers of content based on their level
of expertise and interest. This organizational structure is a
significant departure from the linear-based organization of a
traditional print-based article in incorporating the core text and
supplemental material within a single unified structure. A graphical
abstract allows readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main
take-home message of the paper. The graphical abstract is intended to
encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship and help
readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their
research interests. Research highlights provide a bulleted list of the
key results of the article. Author-Affiliation highlighting makes it
easy to see an author*s affiliations and all authors from the same
affiliation. A figure that contains clickable areas so that it can be
used as a navigation mechanism to directly access specific sub-sections
of the results and figures. Integrated audio and video let authors
present the context of their article via an interview or video
presentation and allow animations to be displayed more effectively. The
Experimental Procedures section contains alternate views allowing
readers to see a summary or the full details necessary to replicate the
experiment. A new approach to displaying figures allows the reader to
identify quickly which figures they are interested in and then drill
down through related supplemental figures. All supplemental figures are
displayed individually and directly linked to the main figure to which
they are related. Real-time reference analyses provide a rich
environment to explore the content of the article via the list of
citations.
CSIR ResearchSpace has successfully implemented one of its main objectives of expanding its collections, namely the inclusion of Open Source Codes. The Open Source Codes are being developed from the CSIR's Meraka Institute, a unit that specialises in ICT research. This specific source codes have been developed to be a mechanism that allows source code quality control and are freely available on ResearchSpace for global community development.
For immediate release
June 25, 2009
For more information, contact:
Jennifer McLennan
(202) 296-2296 ext. 121
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org
Open Access Week partner a one-stop shop for Open Access education
Washington, DC – A new portal for educational materials on the “concept, principles, advantages, approaches and means to achieving Open Access,” the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS), is now online. Launched at the recent ELPUB meeting, the new Web resource was featured at an Open Access Week Web cast today.
OASIS aims to provide an authoritative ‘sourcebook’ on Open Access. The site highlights developments and initiatives from around the world, with links to diverse additional resources and case studies. Materials are presented according to specific focus areas, to reflect diverse interest in wider access to research. OASIS focus areas highlight Researchers, Librarians, Publishers, Administrators, the Public, and Students.
Administrators visiting the site are invited to explore the “Institutional Advantages of Open Access” and consider: Business Aspects of Institutional Open Access Repositories; Institutional Repositories for Research Management and Assessment; Developing an Institutional Open Access Policy; The Optimal Open Access Policy for Institutions; and more.
Topics for Researchers zero in on the “Benefits of Open Access for research dissemination,” and offer in-depth discussions on: Open Access-What is it and why should we have it?; Citation impact; Managing your research profile; Ways to provide Open Access to your work; Author's Rights and Author Addenda; and Publisher Permissions and Embargoes.
OASIS is a community-building as much as a resource-building exercise. Users are encouraged to share and download the resources provided, and to modify and customize them for local use.
The site is coordinated by Alma Swan, of Key Perspectives Ltd, UK and Leslie Chan, University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada and overseen by a steering committee and advisory board of international Open Access experts and advocates.
“OASIS should help every kind of OA outreach and educational effort find the most effective material and avoid reinventing the wheel,” said Peter Suber, SPARC’s Senior Researcher, Editor of Open Access News and member of the OASIS Steering Committee. “Use it as is, improve it, help it grow, and spread the word. Kudos to Alma and Leslie for bringing this useful idea from drawing board to launch.”
OASIS and the Open Access Directory are central components in the program for Open Access Week (October 19 to 23, 2009), which will feature educational tools that local hosts can use to design events that suit local audiences and time zones. Sample program tracks drawn from OASIS, which highlight “Author’s rights and author addenda - For researchers” and “Institutional Advantages from Open Access - For administrators,” have been released for participants to use to design or inspire their plans for the week. The organizers of Open Access Week invite feedback on the sample tracks as well as contributions to OASIS and the Open Access Directory. Additional sample tracks will be developed with advice from registered Open Access Week participants.
For a recording of today’s Web cast, more information about Open Access Week and to register your participation, visit http://www.openaccessweek.org
For more information about OASIS, visit http://www.openoasis.org
For more information about the Open Access Directory, visit http://oad.simmons.edu
##
About Open Access Week
Open Access Week, October 19 – 23, 2009, is an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. 120 campuses in 27 countries celebrated Open Access Day in 2008. Open Access Week is being organized by SPARC, the Public Library of Science, Students for FreeCulture, eIFL, OASIS, and the Open Access Directory. Promotional partners include SPARC Europe, SPARC Japan, DOAJ, OASPA, BIREME, OSI, SURF, Open-access.net, and PKP. To register to participate in Open Access Week, or for more information, visit http://www.openaccessweek.org.
About SPARC
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARC’s advocacy, educational and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc.
-------------------------------------
Jennifer McLennan
Director of Communications
SPARC
(202) 296-2296 x121
Fax: (202) 872-0884
*******************************
OPEN ACCESS WEEK 2009
October 19 - 23
*******************************
For immediate release
March 5, 2009
For more information, contact:
Jennifer McLennan, SPARC
(202) 296-2296 ext 157
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org
Washington, DC – March 5, 2009 – To accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward Open Access to scholarly research results, October 19 – 23, 2009 will mark the first international Open Access Week. The now-annual event, expanded from one day to a full week, presents an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public.
Open Access Week builds on the momentum generated by the 120 campuses in 27 countries that celebrated Open Access Day in 2008. Event organizers SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and Students for FreeCulture welcome key new contributors, who will help to enhance and expand the global reach of this popular event in 2009: eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook); and the Open Access Directory (OAD).
“I’m participating in Open Access Week again this year because I want to shed light on the tremendous potential of Open Access,” said Allyson Mower, Scholarly Communications & Copyright Librarian for the University of Utah’s Marriott Library. “People searching for information usually consume whatever is readily available. Open Access ensures that quality information is at people’s fingertips.”
“eIFL.net works to make intellectual outputs of developing and transitional countries more visible and more easily accessible,” added Rima Kupryte, Director of eIFL.net. “We believe that Open Access contributes to improved education, teaching, and research, and accelerates innovations and economical developments in these countries. Open Access Week is a great opportunity to promote Open Access globally.”
This year’s program will highlight educational resources on Open Access that local hosts can use to customize their own programs to suit local audiences and time zones. OASIS will serve as the centerpiece of the 2009 program, delivering resources for every constituency and every awareness level. The Open Access Directory will again provide an index of participants on five continents, as well as their growing clearinghouse for all OA resources. Through the collaborative functionality of the two initiatives, OA videos, briefing papers, podcasts, slideshows, posters and other informative tools will be drawn from all over the Web to be highlighted during Open Access Week.
The organizers will also work with registrants to develop a variety of sample program tracks, such as “Administrators’ introduction to campus open-access policies and funds,” “OA 101,” and “Complying with the NIH public access policy” that take full advantage of available tools. Participants are invited to adapt these resources for local use, and to mark Open Access Week by hosting an event, distributing literature, blogging -- or even just wearing an Open Access t-shirt.
“After the success of last year’s Open Access Day, we’re delighted to be co-organizing the first ever Open Access Week with our fellow collaborators, again in conjunction with the anniversary of one of our flagship journals,” said Peter Jerram, CEO for the Public Library of Science. “We ask our supporters to celebrate the fifth anniversary of PLoS Medicine by spreading the word about Open Access and getting involved in the week.”
“There’s no more certain sign of the momentum behind Open Access to research than an annual, global celebration of this scale,” added Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “Occasions like this are the best possible way to attract attention from busy faculty members and administrators, and to demonstrate the widespread appeal of Open Access. It’s SPARC’s pleasure to be working with our partners to realize the event once again this year.”
For more information about Open Access Week and to register, visit http://www.openaccessweek.org.
##
SPARC
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARC’s advocacy, educational and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is a founder of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, representing taxpayers, patients, physicians, researchers, and institutions that support open public access to taxpayer-funded research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc.
--
--------------------------
Jennifer McLennan
Director of Communications
SPARC
(The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition)
(202) 296-2296 ext 121
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
January 27th, 2009: Sharing research information via a more open access publishing model would bring millions of pounds worth of savings to the higher education sector as well as benefiting UK plc. This is one of the key findings from a new research project commissioned by JISC.
Professor John Houghton from the Centre of Strategic Economic Studies at Melbourne¹s Victoria University and Professor Charles Oppenheim at Loughborough University were asked to lead research that would throw light on the economic and social implications of new models for scholarly publishing.
The research centred on three models which include:
€ Subscription or toll access publishing which involves reader charges
and
use restrictions;
€ Open access publishing where access is free and publication is funded
from
the authors¹ side; and
€ Open access self-archiving where academic authors post their work in
online repositories, making it freely available to all Internet users.
In their report, Houghton et al. looked beyond the actual costs and savings of different models and examined the additional cost-benefits that might arise from enhanced access to research findings.
The research and findings reveal that core scholarly publishing system activities cost the UK higher education sector around £5 billion in 2007.
Using the different models, the report shows, what the estimated cost would have been:
€ £230 million to publish using the subscription model,
€ £150 million to publish under the open access model and
€ £110 million to publish with the self-archiving with peer review
services
plus some £20 million in operating costs if using the different models.
When considering costs per journal article, Houghton et al. believe that the UK higher education sector could have saved around £80 million a year by shifting from toll access to open access publishing. They also claim that
£115 million could be saved by moving from toll access to open access self-archiving.
In addition to that, the financial return to UK plc from greater accessibility to research might result in an additional £172 million per annum worth of benefits from government and higher education sector research alone.
JISC¹s Chair Professor Sir Tim O¹Shea said, ³The argument for moving from more traditional subscription or toll-based publishing to a model that allows for greater accessibility and makes full use of the advances in technology cannot be ignored. This report shows there are significant savings to be made and benefits to be had.
³JISC will work with publishers, authors and the science community to identify and help to remove the barriers to moving to these more cost-effective models,² he added.
Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, commended the report and added that, "as a research funder that provides additional funds to its grantholders to meet the cost of open access publishing, I am delighted that this report vindicates this approach and shows that the benefits of enhanced accessibility outweigh the costs of supplementing research funds with 'author-pays' open access publishing fees".
Professor Ian Diamond, speaking on behalf of Research Councils UK said,"RCUK welcomes this substantial and interesting report. It will be of great use to the Research Councils as we develop our future policies in relation to publishing and in particular open access."
The full report is available online at
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/economicpublishingmodelsfinalreport.aspex
http://www.clockss.org/clockss/Triggered_Content
CLOCKSS is a joint venture between the world's leading scholarly
publishers and research libraries. Its mission is to build a
sustainable, geographically distributed dark archive with which
to ensure the long-term survival of Web-based scholarly
publications for the benefit of the greater global research
community. Governing Libraries include the Australian National
University, Indiana University, New York Public Library, OCLC
Online Computer Library Center, Rice University, Stanford
University, the University of Alberta, the University of
Edinburgh, the University of Hong Kong and the University of
Virginia. Governing Publishers include the American Medical
Association, the American Physiological Society, bepress,
Elsevier, IOP Publishing, Nature Publishing Group, Oxford
University Press, SAGE Publications, Springer, Taylor & Francis
and Wiley-Blackwell.
###
.akohrman@clockss.org +1-650-721-5838
Press Release
Digital Repository Federation (Japan) and DRIVER sign Memorandum of
Understanding
3 December 2008
Sapporo, Japan and Goettingen, Germany - As part of the SPARC Digital
Repositories Meeting 2008 held in Baltimore Maryland from 17-18 November
2008, DRF (Japan) and DRIVER have agreed to work closely together on
promoting federated repository infrastructures, signing a Memorandum of
Understanding to take this collaboration forward.
DRIVER is a joint initiative of European stakeholders, co-financed by
the European Commission, setting up a technical infrastructure for
digital repositories and facilitating the building of an umbrella
organisation for digital repositories. DRIVER relies on research
libraries for the sustainable operation of repositories and provision of
high quality content through digital repositories.
Digital Repository Federation (DRF) is a federation consisting of 86
universities and research institutes which aims to promote Open Access
and Institutional Repository development in Japan. Under the auspices of
the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo, DRF is a
collaborative program for institutional repositories, based on one of
the research and development projects of the national framework of Cyber
Science Infrastructure (CSI).
DRF and DRIVER share the vision that the Open Access movement in Europe
and in Japan contribute to better scholarly communication in the world;
and that each should contribute actively and cooperatively to a global,
interoperable, trusted and long-term data and service infrastructure
based on Open Access digital repositories.
Collaboration between DRF (Japan) and DRIVER is framed by their joint
support for an Open Access model for repositories in research and higher
education institutions. They present a common strategy to enable
research libraries - pressed to improve scholarly communication by
establishing digital repositories - to expose institutional research
outputs to the world. Networks of individual repositories and
overarching information services for aggregation, retrieval, sharing and
re-use are being built on the basis of institutional, national and
regional location, or by subject areas.
Norbert Lossau, Scientific Technical Co-ordinator of DRIVER, said 'The
collaboration between the organizational structures of both DRIVER and
DRF forms the nucleus of federated repository development of a global,
interoperable, trusted and long-term repository infrastructure. We are
very pleased to formalize our relationship by signing this Memorandum of
Understanding.'
Masaaki Hemmi, the Director of DRF, said 'No doubt the coalition of DRF
and DRIVER will lead to the best and widest dissemination of joint
enterprises between researchers, who turn out scholarly fruits, and
librarians, who manage digital repositories in every corner of the
world. Nothing pleases me more than the start of our collaborative
activities.'
For more information, contact: Dale Peters,
or Shigeki Sugita, sugita@lib.hokudai.ac.jp
FIRST OPEN ACCESS DAY TO BE HELD OCTOBER 14, 2008
For immediate release
August 28, 2008
For more information, contact:
Jennifer McLennan
SPARC
(202) 296-2296
Washington, DC -- August 28, 2008 -- SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing
and
Academic Resources Coalition), the Public Library of Science (PLoS),
and
Students for FreeCulture have jointly announced the first international
Open Access Day. Building on the worldwide momentum toward Open Access
to publicly funded research, Open Access Day will create a key
opportunity for the higher education community and the general public
to
understand more clearly the opportunities of wider access and use of
content.
Open Access Day will invite researchers, educators, librarians,
students, and the public to participate in live, worldwide broadcasts
of
events. In North America, events will be held at 7:00 PM (Eastern) and
7:00 PM (Pacific) and feature appearances from:
Sir Richard Roberts, Ph.D., F.R.S.
Joint winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1993 for
discovering split genes and RNA splicing, one of 26 Nobel Prize-winners
to sign the Open Letter to U.S. Congress in support of taxpayer access
to publicly funded research, and currently at New England Biolabs, USA.
Philip E. Bourne, Ph.D.
Philip E. Bourne is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Computational
Biology and the author of the popular PLoS Computational Biology Ten
Simple Rules Series. He is Professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy
and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego,
Associate Director of the RCSB Protein Data Bank, Senior Advisor to the
San Diego Supercomputer Center, an Adjunct Professor at the Burnham
Institute, and Co-Founder of SciVee. 7PM Pacific
Librarians and student organizers are invited to host meetings around
the broadcast. To see a list of participating campuses and to sign up,
visit the Open Access Day Web site at http://www.openaccessday.org.
Additional international events will be announced shortly.
The event will also mark the launch of the new "Voices of Open Access
Video Series." Key members of the research community, including a
teacher, librarian, researcher, student, patient advocate, and a
funder,
will speak on why they are committed to Open Access.
"The momentum behind Open Access to research has been accelerating for
some time now, even before the mandates at the U.S. National Institutes
of Health and Harvard University," said Heather Joseph, Executive
Director of SPARC. "Events beyond the U.S. especially underscore the
higher education community's commitment to having the access they need.
Open Access Day will provide a perfect way for folks to come together,
consider, and celebrate the ramifications of the global shift we're
experiencing."
"Open Access Day is a great opportunity to inform everyone on campus
about the nature and importance of Open Access," added Nelson Pavlosky,
Co-Founder of Students for FreeCulture. "It's really an issue that
impacts everyone in the university, whether they are professors who
publish, students who research, or librarians who purchase journal
subscriptions. Students for FreeCulture looks forward to working with
SPARC and PLoS to inform our peers, as well as faculty, staff and
administration, about how Open Access can help bring publishing into
the
21st Century."
"Making full use of the Internet to share and reuse content without
restriction is pushing scientific communication into the future," said
Peter Jerram, CEO of PLoS. "Open Access Day acknowledges the enormous
progress that's been made towards comprehensive access to research. We
are pleased to be partnering with the community on this special day. We
would ask our supporters to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the
commencement of our publishing activities in October by
participating."
Open Access Day was inspired by the National Day of Action on February
15, 2007, led by Students for FreeCulture with support from the
Alliance
for Taxpayer Access. This year, the same partners have joined forces
with PLoS, the Open Access scientific and medical Web publisher. Open
Access-supporting organizations are also invited to take part. For
details, contact the organizers.
For details and to participate, visit http://www.openaccessday.org.
#
SPARC
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with
SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than
800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open
system
of scholarly communication. SPARC's advocacy, educational and publisher
partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research.
SPARC is a founder of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, representing
taxpayers, patients, physicians, researchers, and institutions that
support open public access to taxpayer-funded research. SPARC is on the
Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc.
Students for Free Culture (SFC)
Students for FreeCulture is a diverse, non-partisan group of students
and young people who are working to get their peers involved in the
free
culture movement. Launched in April 2004 at Swarthmore College, it has
helped establish student groups at colleges and universities across the
United States. Today, chapters exist at over 30 colleges, from Maine to
California, with many more getting started around the world. Students
for FreeCulture was founded by two Swarthmore students after they sued
voting-machine manufacturer Diebold for abusing copyright law in 2003.
Named after the book Free Culture by Stanford University law professor
Lawrence Lessig, it is part of a growing movement, with roots in the
free software/open source community, media activists, creative artists
and writers, and civil libertarians. Groups with which it has
collaborated include Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, Public Knowledge, and Downhill Battle. Students for Free
Culture is on the Web at http://www.freeculture.org.
PLoS
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of
scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific
and
medical literature a freely available public resource. PLoS publishes
open access, peer-reviewed journals available online to anyone. PLoS
celebrates their fifth anniversary on October 13, 2008. PLoS is on the
Web at www.plos.org.
--
Jennifer McLennan
Director of Communications
SPARC
(The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition)
**************************
Save the date: The SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting 2008
November 17 18, 2008 | Baltimore, MD
**************************
(202) 296-2296 ext 121
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
Library Associations
International Publishers and Librarians Agree On Access to Orphan Works
Geneva/The Hague, 27 June 2007
A joint steering group of the International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the International Publishers'
Association (IPA) has agreed on key principles of access to orphan works
The position paper is a contribution to the international debate on
so-called "orphan works": "Orphan Works" are works in copyright whose
owner cannot be identified and located by someone who wishes to make use
of the work in a manner that requires the rights owner's permission. In
a joint statement the international umbrella organisations of librarians
and book and journal publishers have set out principles aimed at
facilitating the use of orphan works.
The joint statement on orphan works was agreed by the Joint Steering
Group, a working group established by the International Federation of
Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the International
Publishers Association (IPA) to discuss issue of mutual interest.
The statement sets out five principles to be followed by users of
orphaned works:
copyright owner.
attribution to the copyright owner.
reasonably remunerated or appropriate restitution should be made.
previously orphaned work, the injunctive relief should take into account
the creative efforts and investment made in good faith by the user of
the work.
Claudia Lux (IFLA), co-Chair of the IFLA/IPA Steering Group declared:
"Orphan works are bad news for all concerned: for information users,
librarians, publishers and authors. Creativity and progress are stifled
when so many works are consigned to a legal limbo because their
copyright owners cannot be traced. The principles which IFLA has agreed
with the IPA are an important step forward because they set out clearly
what bona fide users of orphan works must do to avoid being held liable
for copyright infringement, and what should be done if a missing
copyright owner is found after the work has been used. If applied, the
principles would ensure that the rights of copyright owners are
respected without exposing users of orphan works to an intimidating
level of risk."
Herman P. Spruijt (IPA), co-Chair of the Steering Group declared:
"Copyright is crucially important to publishers. We must ensure that it
supports access to knowledge and takes into account the interests of all
those contributing to the knowledge economy, including publishers. As
part of their business publishers seek authorisation to use previously
published works, including orphan works. Publishers will therefore
benefit from a pragmatic, common sense approach that balances the
legitimate interests of all sides. Our principles will help to achieve
this."
Notes for editors:
The full statement can be found at:
http://www.internationalpublishers.org/images/pdf/IndustryPolicy/IFLAIPA/PRs/27_07_07.pdf
IFLA is the global voice of the library and information profession.
Established in 1927, IFLA currently has some 1500 members in 50
countries. Together, IFLA's association and institutional members
represent over 500.000 librarians and library workers serving almost two
billion registered library users worldwide. IFLA is an accredited
Non-Governmental Organisation enjoying consultative status to the United
Nations. For more on IFLA, see: www.ifla.org
The International Publishers Association (IPA) is the global
non-governmental organisation representing all aspects of book and
journal publishing worldwide. Established in 1896, IPA's mission is to
promote and protect publishing and to raise awareness for publishing as
a force for cultural and political advancement worldwide. IPA is an
industry association with a human rights mandate. IPA currently has 65
member associations in 53 countries.
The members of the IFLA/IPA Steering Group are:
For IFLA:
Claudia Lux, IFLA President-elect (Co-Chair)
Vinyet Panyella, IFLA Governing Board member
Winston Tabb, Chair of the IFLA Committee on Copyright and other Legal
Matters
Peter Lor, IFLA Secretary General
For IPA:
Herman P. Spruijt (Co-Chair), IPA Vice President, Brill Academic, NL
Marc Brodsky, American Institute of Physics, USA
Michael Mabe, Chief Executive Officer, STM
Jens Bammel, IPA Secretary General
From today's CLA Digest:
http://cla.informz.net/cla/archives/archive_155065.html
CLA Moves Open Access
CLA Executive Council has approved some recommendations from the Open
Access Task Force that move CLA towards providing virtually all of
its intellectual property free of charge, in digital form, online and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. The revised policy
has four parts:
CLA will provide for full and immediate open access for all CLA
publications, with the exception of Feliciter and monographs The
embargo period for Feliciter is one issue, and the embargo policy
itself will be reviewed after one year. Monographs will be considered
for open access publishing on a case-by-case basis.
CLA actively encourages its members to self-archive in institutional
and/or disciplinary repositories and will investigate a partnership
with E-LIS, the Open Archive for Library and Information Studies.
CLA will generally provide for the author's retention of copyright by
employing Creative Commons licensing or publisher-author agreements
that promote open access.
CLA will continue its long-standing policy of accessibility to
virtually all CLA information except for narrowly defined
confidential matters (e.g. certain personnel or legal matters).
The Task Force's Report is available at:
http://www.cla.ca/about/committees/Open%20Access%20Report.pdf
OpenDoc Society
ISOC Netherlands and ISOC Belgium participate in the launch of OpenDoc
Society
A new member-based organisation, OpenDoc Society, will try to bring a
global community of users, technologists, and decision makers together
around Open Document Format (ODF). The OpenDoc Society will be trying
to build a community around the Open Document Format (ISO 26300:2006)
and related document standards as key technologies for our society and
the Internet in a pre-competitive way.
Open Document Format (ODF) is an OASIS/ISO-standardized, vendor neutral
file format that enables cross-platform collaboration between people and
many different types of applications - from Office suites to server
software. Having such a standard will re-establish full ownership of
documents to users, guaranteeing unhindered access to content now and in
the future. At the same time, it will contribute to interoperability and
innovation across platforms and applications. This will help people work
more efficiently and take away the dependency on specific software
companies and versions of software for having access to one's own
content. It is not about converting people to use specific software. It
promotes all ODF-based technology alike: may the best offering in any
given situation win. This pragmatic and positive approach is what makes
the OpenDoc Society unique. A growing number of governments, including
the Dutch, Belgian, South-African and Danish governments, is moving away
from the proprietary formats such as .doc, .wpd and .xls and converting
to ODF.
On 23 October 2007, the new initiative was launched with a large event
in the Royal Library in the Hague, with speakers from several
governments, the European Commission, and the OASIS TC that produces
ODF. Around forty organizations, representing government, industry,
civil society, cultural institutions, organizations for people with
visual impairments, and open source projects support the initiative
already. ISOC Netherlands and ISOC Belgium actively contributed to the
establishment of the new organization.
The founding board of OpenDoc Society will consist of Bert Bakker
(director of Center for Media and Communication, and former member of
the Netherlands parliament - chair), Michiel Leenaars (director ISOC.nl,
manager at NLnet foundation - secretary) and Bob Goudriaan (financial
specialist and informal investor - treasurer). As new local branches
around the world are added, an international board will be set up.
The organization wants to expand internationally and hopes it can play a
strategic role in creating awareness and building a community to further
the growth of ODF. More information can be found at:
There is already interest from a number of ISOC chapters to set up local
branches. If you want to start a chapter of OpenDoc Society in your
region, contact: expand@opendocsociety.org or alternatively contact one
of the people below:
Michiel Leenaars
ISOC Netherlands, NLnet foundation
Kruislaan 419
1098 VA Amsterdam
Netherlands
Phone: +31 (0)20 8884251
Cell phone: +31 (0)6 27050947
Machtelt Garrels
ISOC Belgium
M: +32 (0)473 94 68 78
DIG-LIb
The September/October 2007 issue of D-Lib Magazine
(http://www.dlib.org/) is now available.
This issue contains five articles, a two-part commentary, six conference
and workshop reports, the 'In Brief' column, excerpts from recent press
releases, and news of upcoming conferences and other items of interest
in 'Clips and Pointers'. This month, D-Lib features the "University of
Washington Libraries Digital Collections" contributed by Ann Lally,
University of Washington.
The two-part commentary is:
Cyberinfrastructure, Data, and Libraries, Part 1: A Cyberinfrastructure
Primer for Librarians
Anna Gold, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cyberinfrastructure, Data, and Libraries, Part 2: Libraries and the Data
Challenge: Roles and Actions for Libraries
Anna Gold, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The articles include:
Overview - Repositories by the Numbers
Chuck Thomas, Florida Center for Library Automation; Robert H. McDonald,
San Diego Supercomputer Center; and Cat S. McDowell, University of North
Carolina, Greensboro
Measuring and Comparing Participation Patterns in Digital Repositories:
Repositories by the Numbers, Part 1
Chuck Thomas, Florida Center for Library Automation, and Robert H.
McDonald, San Diego Supercomputer Center
Evaluating Institutional Repository Deployment in American Academe Since
Early 2005: Repositories by the Numbers, Part 2
Cat S. McDowell, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
The Data Curation Continuum: Managing Data Objects in Institutional
Repositories
Andrew Treloar, David Groenewegen, and Cathrine Harboe-Ree, Monash
University
Developing Handle System(R) Web Services at Cornell University
Adam J. Smith, Cornell University
The conference reports include:
Report on the Seventh ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries
(JCDL 2007) - Building and Sustaining the Digital Environment: June
18-23, 2007, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Lillian Cassel, Villanova University; and Jose Borbinha, Instituto
Superior Tecnico (IST)
Series of Workshops on Digital Library Foundations
Donatella Castelli, ISTI-CNR; and Edward A. Fox, Virginia Tech
The 3rd Annual Digital Libraries Workshop at the JCDL 2007 Conferences
Javed Mostafa, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Report on the 7th International Workshop on Web Archiving (IWAW 2007)
Andreas Rauber, Vienna Technical University
Contextualized Attention Metadata: Personalized Access to Digital Resources
Jehad Najjar, Martin Wolpers and Erik Duval, Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven (K.U.Leuven), Belgium
Global Access to Science- Scientific Publishing for the Future: A Report
of IATUL 2007 Conference Held at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology,
Sweden, June 11 - 14, 2007
D-Lib Magazine has mirror sites at the following locations:
UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, England
http://mirrored.ukoln.ac.uk/lis-journals/dlib/
The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
State Library of Lower Saxony and the University Library of Goettingen,
Goettingen,
Germany
http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/aw/d-lib/
Universidad de Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
http://dlib.ejournal.ascc.net/
BN - National Library of Portugal, Portugal
(If the mirror site closest to you is not displaying the July/August
2007 issue of D-Lib Magazine at this time, please check back later.
There is a delay between the time the magazine is released in the United
States and the time when the mirroring process has been completed.)
Bonnie Wilson
Editor
D-Lib Magazine
Africa and Digitisation
Innovation, journal of appropriate librarianship and information work
in Southern Africa.
No. 34 (June) 2007
The Politics of Digital Initiatives Concerning Africa
Contents
Summary of issues and decisions – David Easterbrook
Initiatives Concerning Africa, August 4-5, 2007 – Al Kagan
Freedom Struggle -- Christopher Saunders
and African control of African digitisation -- Peter Limb
archives of the Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa -- Premesh Lalu
universities -- Cliff Missen
African survey -- Charles Masango,
Workshop Invitees List
Archives-Libraries Committee Resolution on Migrated Archives (1977)
Guidelines of the African Studies Association for Members’ Ethical
Conduct in Research and Other Professional Undertakings in Africa
(2005)
Innovation is an accredited journal; articles are indexed in Index to
South African periodicals and abstracted in Library and Information
Science abstracts. Articles are available from African Journals Online
and the British Library for Development Studies Document Delivery
Service.
See also http://www.innovation.ukzn.ac.za/innovationbase.htm for a
selection of online articles.
South Africa
The Electronic Communication Act No. 36 of 2005 recently came into
effect. It provides for discounted rates for public schools and public
further education and training institutions. It, however, does not
extend to universities or libraries.
See Clause 73 below :-
E-rate
73. (1) Internet services, provided to all public schools as defined in the South African
Schools Act, 1996 (Act No. 84 of 1996), and all public further education and training
institutions as defined in the Further Education and Training Act, 1998 (Act No. 98 of
1998), must be provided at a minimum discounted rate of 50% off the total charge levied
by the licensee providing Internet services to such institutions.
(2) The discount is applicable of the total charge levied by the licensee which includes
but is not limited to the following:
(a) Any connectivity charges for access to the Internet;
(b) charges for any equipment used for or in association with connectivity to the
Internet; and
(c) all calls made to an Internet Service Provider.
(3) Where the licensee, who provides Internet services to the
institutions as contemplated in subsection (1), obtains its electronic communications
facilities for the provision of Internet services from a electronic communications network
service licensee, the licensee is entitled to a minimum of 50% off the retail
rate charged to it by the electronic communications network service licensee for the
facilities in question.
(4) The implementation of this section must be in the manner
prescribed.
(5) The Minister may, in consultation with the Minister responsible for
Education,declare categories of independent schools or private further education
and training institutions to be entitled to the discount mentioned in subsection
(1).
The implementation of the section will probably only take place during
2007.
Empowering libraries through Open Source solutions: launch of eIFL OSS program
PRESS RELEASE
November 7, 2006
eIFL Open Source Software kick-off meeting Cupramontana, Italy, 29-30 October 2006
On 29-30 October 2006, eIFL.net hosted an international gathering of software developers, information access advocates and library representatives at the picturesque
"Open Source is all about empowerment", said Art Rhyno, a Systems Librarian at the University of Windsor and author of a book on OSS and a report for eIFL in 2005. "This is not about dropping packaged solutions into resource poor regions, this is about giving people the tools and training to create their own solutions at the local level", continued Rhyno. An immediate area of focus is the Integrated Library System (ILS), typically the biggest technology expense in a library budget and identified by eIFL members as a priority for new solutions. "The ILS is a huge drain on a library's
Erik Hatcher, author and a leading developer on Lucene, one of the world's premier search engine technologies, attended the Cupramontana meeting. "OSS represents the
state-of-the-art in Information Retrieval(IR) systems", said Hatcher. "Libraries can put together systems in ways that were not possible before and the use of Open Source by libraries represents a perfect partnership of software and organisations that serve the common good", he continued. Marek Tuszynski, co-founder and partner of Tactical Technical Collective (TTC), best captured the spirit of the eIFL initiative in describing how TTC distribute Open Source Software in packaged CD collections and organise regional training workshops for non-profits in developing and transition countries. It is envisaged that eIFL will model its OSS activities on the innovative and successful approaches developed by TTC.
The first step is to finalise membership of an eIFL OSS Advisory Board. This will be taken forward by Tigran Zargaryan and Bess Sadler, a librarian and software developer for the University of Virginia library, who will prepare revised Terms of Reference and will work with eIFL to identify potential partners. Sadler, who has worked as an international observer and has experience developing software and technical solutions for indigenous groups in Canada and Latin America, points to the historical role of libraries as a source of knowledge and empowerment. "Access to information is vital for any kind of positive change in society. Libraries do a good job of ensuring this access. Our role is to support libraries in eIFL member countries, so that a lack of financial resources need not mean a lack of available knowledge."
Further information:
Rima Kupryte, Director
Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL) c/o ADN Kronos,
Piazza Mastai 9
Tel: +(39)(06)5807216/17
E-mail: rima.kupryte@eifl.net
html: www.eifl.net
eIFL
eIFL.net is an international foundation which supports national library consortia in fifty transition and developing countries to negotiate and advocate for the wide availability of electronic resources to education, research and professional communities as well as governmental organisations and civil society. This global network embraces
millions of users in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.
--
Read about eIFL in wikipedia!
Electronic_Information_for_Libraries
Internet Coalition to Promote Access to Knowledge and Online Free Speech
Civil Society, Govt, Business, & Academia Join Together to Form "A2K@IGF"
IP Justice Media Release
1 November 2006
(Athens) A broad range of companies, civil society organizations,
governments, and academics have joined together to form a "dynamic
coalition" to promote online freedom of expression and access to knowledge
at the inaugural meeting of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum IGF
in Athens.
One of the main "deliverables" of the IGF meeting is the creation of dynamic
coalitions, or multi-stakeholder groups working together over a multi-year
process to provide recommendations for "best practices" on particular issues
that deal with online activity.
On Wednesday, November 1st at IGF in Athens, a number of the organizers of
the IGF workshop on freedom of expression and access to knowledge held a
press conference to announce the creation of a dynamic coalition.
The coalition will work towards promoting the Internet as a tool of
development, education and freedom, and will focus on the proper balance for
intellectual property rights in a digital world.
Among others, founding members of the IGF dynamic coalition include IP
Justice, Google, Council of Europe, CPTech, Sun Microsystems, Bibliotheca
Alexandrina, Yale Law School Information Society Project, Free Software
Foundation Europe, Franklin Pierce Law School, Electronic Information for
Libraries (eIFL), Electronic Frontier Foundation, Computer Professionals for
Social Responsibility (CPSR) and the IP Academy of Singapore. The coalition
will report back at the 2007 IGF in Rio de Janeiro on its progress.
Details on the workshop and press conference speakers are below.
IGF Workshop on Free Expression and A2k:
"Harnessing the Power of the Internet to Provide Access to Knowledge & Free
Flow of Information": A workshop to explore significant opportunities and
barriers to harnessing the power of the Internet to provide access to
knowledge and encourage freedom of expression and the free flow of
information. In particular, the workshop will focus on the appropriate
balance for intellectual property rights on the Internet and their impact on
free speech and access to knowledge.
Workshop Speakers:
will address challenges to technical interoperability and the free flow of
information on the Internet from software patents.
Alexandrina) will discuss the needs of online libraries to provide access to
information and encourage development.
member of Legal Human Academy and expert of the Council of Europe will
discuss international human rights conventions and their relationship to
intellectual property law, access to knowledge, and freedom of expression.
Academy of Singapore will address special online challenges to freedom of
expression and access to knowledge from "digital locks".
the developing countries to provide access to knowledge and promote free
expression.
barriers Google faces in providing access to knowledge from unbalanced
copyright law.
Webpage for workshop:
http://ipjustice.org/wp/campaigns/internet-governance/igf/382/
Workshop Sponsors:
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Computer Professionals for
Social Responsibility - Peru Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech) Egypt's
Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL) Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) Google International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions (IFLA) IP Justice (IPJ) South Centre
Innovation, Access to Knowledge and Intellectual Property Programme (IAIPP)
Sun Microsystems Third World Network (TWN)
DEVELOPING WORLD TO RECEIVE ACCESS TO CRITICAL GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
"Online Access to Research in the Environment" (OARE)
NEW YORK CITY/NAIROBI, - In an effort to help reduce great
disparities in scientific capital between developed and
developing nations, the United Nations Environment Programme
UNEP), Yale University, and leading science and technology
ublishers launched today a new collaborative initiative to
make global scientific research in the environmental sciences
available online to tens of thousands of environmental
scientists, researchers, and policy makers in the developing
world for free or at nominal cost.
Through Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE),
more than 200 prestigious publishers, societies and
associations will offer one of the world's largest
collections of scholarly, peer-reviewed environmental science
journals to over 1200 public and non-profit environmental
institutions in more than 100 developing nations of Africa,
Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and
Eastern Europe. Each and every institution enrolled in OARE
will receive resources with an annual retail subscription
value in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Over 1000 scholarly scientific and technical journal titles
in such fields as biotechnology, botany, climate change,
ecology, energy, environmental chemistry, environmental
economics, environmental engineering and planning,
environmental law and policy, environmental toxicology and
pollution, geography, geology, hydrology, meteorology,
oceanography, urban planning, and zoology will be provided
through a portal presented in English, Spanish and French.
OARE will also provide important Abstract and Index Research
Databases (A&I Databases) -- intellectual tools the
scientific and professional community use to search for
information within thousands of scholarly publications, and
other scholarly resources.
"OARE is a new and inspiring example of international
cooperation that can contribute to the reduction of the
North-South scientific gap and digital divide, objectives
that are both at the top of the UN agenda and the UN
Millennium Development Goals", said Achim Steiner, United
Nations Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director.
"Thanks to advances in information and communication
technologies and the great generosity of many leading
scientific publishers, we have an unprecedented opportunity
to provide environmental institutions in developing countries
with intellectual resources we in the developed world so
often take for granted", said James Gustave Speth, dean of
Yale's Environment School.
"Scientific publishers welcome this opportunity to provide
access to the latest published research in environmental and
related sciences to researchers and other professionals in
106 developing countries, in the expectation that, in turn,
higher quality research will emerge from those countries, to
the benefit of all of us", said Michael Mabe, CEO of the
International Association of Scientific, Technical and
Medical Publishers (STM).
"The Hewlett Foundation is committed to providing high
quality educational materials to students and scholars in the
developing world. We are extremely pleased to join with Yale,
UNEP and the many participating publishers, societies and
associations to make scientific resources available in
developing countries, where the need is so great.", stated
Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
OARE aims to contribute to the development of expert
professional and academ