Census of Institutional Repositories
The Council on Library and Information Resources has published a census report of institutional repositories:
A considerable portion of the scholarly record is born digital, and some scholarship is produced in digital formats that have no physical, in-the-hand counterparts. The proliferation of digital scholarship raises serious and pressing issues about how to organize, access, and preserve it in perpetuity. The response of academic institutions has been to build and deploy institutional repositories (IRs) to manage the digital scholarship their learning communities produce. IR efforts require a considerable financial, personnel, and technical investment. For this reason, it would be helpful if academic institutions could learn from one another, sharing their experiences, building models, and formulating best practices. Such sharing would streamline the implementation of IRs at institutions where the decision to initiate an IR effort has not yet been made.
A brief review of the report is available from the February 2007 issue of Current Cites.
P.S.: Some statistical data about institutional repositories around the world is available from OpenDOAR. Thanks to Charles Bailey’s DigitalKoans for reporting it.
Creative Commons License Version 3.0
Creative Commons has released Version 3.0 of its licenses. Here is a description of how they can help people who publish online:
Creative Commons helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what they can and can’t do with your work. When you choose a license, we provide you with tools and tutorials that let you add license information to your own site, or to one of several free hosting services that have incorporated Creative Commons.
Click here for descriptions of the licenses. To select a license you need, simply answer these short questions.
Open Access to Reshape Rules of Research
An article (Open access: Reshaping rules of research), written by Dr. Michael Geist from the University of Ottawa, points out the benefits of open access publishing:
University researchers typically published their findings in expensive, peer-reviewed publications, which were purchased by those same publicly funded universities.
The model certainly proved lucrative for large publishers, yet resulted in the public paying twice for research that it was frequently unable to access.
…
The emergence of the Internet dramatically changes the equation.
Researchers are increasingly choosing to publish in freely available, open access journals posted on the Internet, rather than in conventional, subscription-based publications.
…
For those researchers committed to traditional publication, open access principles mandate that they self-archive their work by depositing an electronic copy in freely available institutional repositories shortly after publication.
This approach grants the public full access to the work, while retaining the current peer-reviewed conventional publication model.
Free Access to Research Results in EU
In its report on access, dissemination, and preservation of scientific information, the European Commission shows support for free online access to scientific research results because of its effect on speeding up scholarly communication. From a news report (EU to push online publication of scientific data) of the Commission’s decision:
Digital technologies are reshaping how research information is viewed, analyzed, and eventually published, the Commission said. For example, about 90 percent of all science journals are now available online, often by subscription. But digital technologies are also leading to more "open access" publishing. This provides free and wide access to publications online. Better access to research data also opens the way to new types of uses and services, often through the reusing of past results as the raw material for new experimentation.
Symposium on Intellectual Property 2007
The Center for Intellectual Property at the University of Maryland University College will hold the seventh Annual Symposium on Intellectual Property in May 2007. The theme of the Symposium will be "Copyright Utopia: Alternative Visions, Methods and Policies":
What would copyright utopia look like?
Join the Center for Intellectual Property as we convene this conversation with noted scholars and practitioners to discuss the current state of copyright nationally and internationally. Spanning three days, our two keynote speakers and six engaging panels will facilitate our discussion on the technological, legal, and licensing alternatives to the current state of copyright.
The registration is now open.
Achieving Quality and Quantity in Open Access Publishing
BioMed Central, an open access publisher, held a colloquium on open access publishing in London, UK earlier this month. The slide shows and audio files of the presentations are now available online. The presentations were divided into these categories:
- Definition of open access and business models
- How is quality or depth of coverage defined in open access?
- Quality and quantity from an author’s perspective
- Who benefits from open access publishing? Authors’, readers’ and funders’ perspectives
- The open access imperative: where are we now, and where do we want to be?
Self-archiving among Economists
Two economists from the University of California, Santa Barbara have published a paper (How often do economists self-archive?) that examines the self-archiving practices among economists. They conclude that self-archiving brings about two benefits:
[T]he benefits of self-archiving to the academic community are twofold. There is the direct effect of making a greater portion of the body of research available to scholars everywhere and the secondary effect of reducing the prices charged by publishers who exploit their monopoly power.
To learn more about self-archiving, visit Self-archiving FAQ, Author Rights, and the Romeo index of publishers’ policy regarding authors’ self-archiving.
Know Your Copy Rights
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL), with assistance from university counsels and copyright specialists, has created the Know Your Copy Rights brochure to help faculty and teaching assistants better understand issues surrounding the use of copyrighted materials for academic purpose. The brochure addresses topics such as fair use, "the advantages of linking to instead of copying works, and special provisions for displaying or performing works in classes."
There is also a detailed frequently-asked-questions document for reference. It was developed by attorney Peggy Hoon.
More Support for Federal Research Public Access Act
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) has issued a statement to support the passage of the Federal Research Public Access Act:
The ASCB believes strongly that barriers to scientific communication slow scientific progress. The more widely scientific results are disseminated, the more readily they can be understood, applied, and built upon. The sooner findings are shared, the faster they will lead to new scientific insights and breakthroughs. This conviction has motivated the ASCB to provide free access to all of the research articles in Molecular Biology of the Cell two months after publication, which it has done since 2001. The articles are available both on the journal’s website and in the National Library of Medicine’s online archive, PubMed Central.
The vast majority of the biomedical research conducted at American universities and colleges is funded by taxpayers. The ASCB believes that taxpayers are best served when all scientists, educators, physicians, and members of the public – including patients and their families – have access to publicly funded research results. So long as significant access barriers remain, taxpayers are not fully benefiting from the work that they fund. With the proliferation of networked technology, we have an unprecedented and cost-effective means to overcome such barriers. For the first time, it is possible and practical to offer free access to every potential user. It is incumbent upon us, as scientists and citizens, to take full advantage of this opportunity.
New Blog on Copyright Issues
Launched by the Center for Intellectual Property (CIP) at the University of Maryland University College, Collectanea is a new blog that focuses on copyright issues encountered by higher education and libraries:
The purpose of Collectanea is to provide an opportunity for CIP’s virtual scholar to share his/her thoughts, musings, and ideas on intellectual property (IP) law, policy, and culture. Further, to her thoughts on the breaking developments that influence IP now and in the future.
