Open and Shut?: Open Access: The People’s Petition

Open and Shut?: Open Access: The People’s Petition:
(There is a short Q&A with OA advocate John Wilbanks) - May 25, 2012

Earlier this month a group of Open Access (OA) advocates flew to Washington to attend a meeting with the US Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). Their objective was to convince OSTP that it is vital the US government ensures that all publicly-funded research is made freely available on the Internet.

The omens seemed good: at the end of last year the OSTP had issued an RFI on Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting from Federally Funded Research, and the Obama Administration has been making positive noises about OA for a while now (although without introducing any new policies as yet).

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Petion for Public Access for Federally Funded Research

A petition calling for public access to all federally funded research, posted on the White House’s “We the People” website on May 21, already has 14,743 signatures as of the morning of May 24. If the petition gets 25,000 signatures by June 19, it will be considered for action by the White House staff.

Open Access Policy for UC San Francisco

Open Access Movement Finds New Ally in University of California, San Francisco

May 24, 2012 By Michael Kelley 

From

The open access movement received another major boost on May 21 when the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), one of the leading public, scientific institutions in the country, adopted an open access policy.

The UCSF academic senate voted unanimously to make electronic versions of current and future scientific articles freely available to the public. This is particularly significant because, according to numbers from the university, the UCSF health campus is the country’s largest public recipient of funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), receiving 1,056 grants last year valued at $532.8 million.

“This vote is very, very good news,” said Karen Butter, UCSF librarian and assistant vice chancellor. “I am delighted that UCSF will join leading institutions in changing the model of scientific communications, and that UCSF authors have chosen to take control of their scholarship, providing new audiences with incredible opportunities to translate UCSF’s remarkable research into improving health care.”

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"E-Content: The Digital Dialogue" - e-book release from American Library Association

American Library Association (ALA) released “E-content: The Digital Dialogue,” a new report examining fair and reasonable access to digital content through our nation’s libraries.  A major focus of this report is e-books.  Certainly a timely topic and one of interest to most of the RUSA membership. 

From the press release: "The report, published as a supplement to American Libraries magazine, explores various licensing models and the state of librarian-publisher relations. Additionally, the report provides an update on the ALA-wide effort to promote access to digital content (co-chaired by Robert Wolven, associate university librarian at Columbia University, and Sari Feldman, executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library)."

 

Announcement from May 23, 2012

Inaugural Issue of Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

Inaugural Issue of Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication released May 16, 2012

The inaugural issue of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication (JLSC) is now available (http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/), featuring open access, peer-reviewed research, about library-led scholarly communication initiatives, online publishing and digital projects. Journal content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. The journal is a not-for-profit endeavor, published by Pacific University Library. In support of open and equitable opportunities for authors, JLSC does not charge article submission or publication fees.

“Because libraries are actively working to shape the scholarly communication sphere, there was a need for this important work to be specifically represented in the literature. JLSC meets this need by providing a dedicated ‘home’ for librarians to share their ideas about institutional and digital repositories, open education initiatives, library e-publishing services, authors’ rights advocacy efforts, data curation and other emerging issues,” says editor Marisa Ramirez (Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo).

JLSC is open to experimental formats and innovative alternatives to the traditional publishing system.

The first issue is available online at http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/.