Open Access News (Formerly: FOS News)
…Peter Jacso reviews three search utilities in his Picks and Pans column (p.57), and calls Citebase Search “the crown jewel of the Open Citation Project,” … [and] dismisses Google’s interface for searching scholarly archives (consisting of material from nine scientific publishers,)
House of Commons - Science and Technology - Tenth Report
The report, entitled “Scientific Publications: Free for all?” is a result of the UK House of Commons Science & Technology Committee’s inquiry into scientific publications that has investigated pricing, access and availability issues.
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Open Access
Association of College and Research Libraries,
Association of Research Libraries,
SPARC,
SPARC Europe. [PDF. 6pp]
The Open Access brochure presents a more specific approach to change, by describing the benefits of open access to authors, readers, teachers, scholars, and scientists.
Facts and figures demonstrate how open access to scholarly research capitalizes on Internet connectivity to increase a research article’s use and impact.
The brochure suggests steps authors of journal articles can take to provide open access to their work. This action can be at the local level in providing access to their own journal articles, and at a broader level to support open access publishers.
Here is an interesting idea: blog a famous work of literature, full text, one day at a time. Three examples:
The Free Expression Policy Project
By Nancy Kranich
Senior Research Fellow, 2003-04 and the FEPP and past president of the American Library Association.
In the last decade, mass media companies have developed methods of control that undermine the public’s traditional rights to use, share, and reproduce information and ideas. These technologies, combined with dramatic consolidation in the media industry and new laws that increase its control over intellectual products, threaten to undermine the political discourse, free speech, and creativity needed for a healthy democracy.
In response to the crisis, librarians, cyber-activists, and other public interest advocates have sought ways to expand access to the wealth of resources that the Internet promises, and have begun to build online communities, or “commons,” for producing and sharing information, creative works, and democratic discussion. This report documents the information commons movement, explains its importance, and outlines the theories and “best practices” that have developed to assist its growth.
Also available in PDF.
The Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public
Domain: Proceedings of a Symposium (2003).
Board on International Scientific Organizations (BISO)
Julie M. Esanu and Paul F. Uhlir, Editors
Steering Committee on the Role of Scientific and Technical Data and
Information in the Public Domain
Office of International Scientific and Technical Information Programs
Board on International Scientific Organizations
Policy and Global Affairs Division
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C. www.nap.edu
Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor’s eJournal - Earth 911, Model of E-Governance, Not Part of Government
Gillmor describes the innovative environmental web site Earth 911 where “government workers and volunteers are feeding all kinds of environment-related information into Earth 911, an environmental clearinghouse of unparalleled scope and value, serving both governments and communities.”
Gillmor notes that Earth 911 combines databases and the “staff members massage the data, then arrange it so the public can use it. The result is a highly centralized core, yet relying on a thoroughly decentralized data-collection system, that feels utterly local to the person looking for information.”
When you visit the Earth 911 site and put in your ZIP code, you don’t see a list of agencies. You see a list of topics — and only when you drill deep into the site do you ever learn which, if any, government agency is providing the service.
This is more than an interesting and useful site. It iis a model for collaborative research and ease of use of complex information.
This is an interesting concept, although a little limited at this point. It is a website that allows you to post a bibliography. The service supports browsing and searching of bibliographies and indexes of authors, keywords and sources. This will be a subscription service.
A prime area for libraries to explore. We have the databases and we have lots of users gaining experience with the contents of those databases. If we could make it easy for users to share what they learn about the books and article they find useful, it could enhance our catalogs and databases
in ways previously only imagined by theortical research in Information Retrieval… and Google and Amazon.
Thanks to LIS!
Wired News: P2P in the Legal Crosshairs
Isn’t that special (think Church lady!). Bill Lockyer, the CA Attorney General , is circulating a draft letter to fellow state attorneys general for this spring’s National Association of Attorneys General, of which Lockyer is president. The document characterizes P2P software as a “dangerous product” and describes the failure of technology makers to warn consumers of those dangers as a deceptive trade practice. Only problem is, the metadata on the Word document states that the letter’s author is none other than Vans Stevenson, senior vice president for state legislative affairs of the Motion Picture Association of America. Can you read between the metadata?!
[Thanks Joi Ito]