Librarian Must Read: Teaching Library Users About Access Barriers

Abstract: "This paper discusses the importance of incorporating licensing issues in access policies for electronic resources in research libraries. The implications for patron understanding of basic legal issues and the role of the library in managing and acquiring these resources are investigated and discussed. A survey of various research libraries was undertaken to examine what is provided to patrons in terms of conditions of use for electronic resources. Literature relating to the management and provision of electronic resources was examined. It was found that few libraries provide key licensing information to their patrons. This has important consequences in terms of the patron's lack of awareness of restrictions on use, as well as the costs, complexity, and consortial involvement in acquiring these resources. A comprehensive international review of the trends and practices of research libraries regarding access policies and licensing issues would build upon this paper's findings. Library patrons are not receiving adequate information about the resources they are using. If more research libraries would consider what licensing information is made available to patrons, there could be changes in patron understanding and perception of the library. This will impact the profile of the library in academia, and the changing role of librarians in collection development in the digital environment. The paper will be of value to research libraries involved in the acquisition, management and delivery of electronic resources to its patrons, and to librarians involved in collection development and management."

Source: Tony Horava. Access policies and licensing issues in research libraries. Collection Building 4: 9-11 (2005) [FullText] [OANews Record]

Student Publication Explains the Reason for University Library Journal Cancellations

Excerpt: "Those who wander down to the second floor of the Dimond Library may soon begin to notice the selection of print journals is decreasing on the shelves.

The reason for the cancellations of journals is simple. It is because of inflation, according to Judith Brink, head of collection development at the Dimond Library. Brink said that the journal market is under stress because they are trying to provide information electronically as well as by print.

The inflation of the price of journals domestically has been 10 percent while the foreign inflation of journals has been 15 percent. The average equaling 11 percent inflation in journals, said Claudia J. Morner, Ph.D., the University librarian of the Dimond Library. The problem begins with the fact that the library budget for fiscal year 2004 (a fiscal year begins July 1and ends June 30) was $14,137,246 million while the budget for fiscal year 2005 is $14,618,696 million, which creates an increase of three percent. This means that the journals are inflating faster than the libraries budget, according to Morner.

About $3.2 million out of about $5.1 million for use on all the collections such as books, Compact Discs, etc., was spent this fiscal year, Morner said. The rest of the budget goes for things like salaries, fringe benefits and almost more than four million dollars pays to keep up the facility, she said.

The way that this problem is to be handled is "to look at the collection and to see if it is meeting the needs of the students and the faculty," Morner said.

UNH is not the only school going through this. Most schools have been cutting journals, Morner said...

A "way to determine whether a journal is to be cancelled is how much use it gets. The circulation of journals can indicate how much it has been used, said Brink. They count circulation anytime a journal is off the shelf, which also counts when being used for photocopies as well as being read in the library. If the journal is put back in the same place then they will not be able to tell if it is used, but when they find it out of place, it counts as a use."

Source: Betsy Rose. Dimond Library budget creates journal cancellations: Dimond Library budget creates journal cancellations. The New Hampshire, the Student Publication of the University of The New Hempshire (28 March 2005) [FullText]

Copyright Information for Authors of Elsevier Journals: Postscript Archiving Permitted

Full Title: Copyright Information for Authors of Elsevier, Harcourt and Butterworth-Heinemann Journals

"I. Can I post my article on the internet?

You can post your version of your article on your personal web page or the web site of your institution, provided that you include a link to the journal's home page or the article's DOI and include a complete citation for the article. This means that you can update your version (e.g. the Word or Tex form) to reflect changes made during the peer review and editing process.

II. What rights do I retain as author?

As an author, you retain rights for large number of author uses, including use by your employing institute or company. These rights are retained and permitted without the need to obtain specific permission from Elsevier.

the right to make copies of the article for their own personal use, including for their own classroom teaching use;

the right to make copies and distribute copies (including through e-mail) of the article to research colleagues, for the personal use by such colleagues (but not commercially or systematically, e.g. via an e-mail list or list serve);

the right to post a pre-print version of the article on Internet web sites including electronic pre-print servers, and to retain indefinitely such version on such servers or sites - see also our information on electronic preprints for a more detailed discussion on these points.the right to post a revised personal version of the text of the final article (to reflect changes made in the peer review and editing process) on the author's personal or institutional web site or server, with a link to the journal home page (on elsevier.com);

the right to present the article at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of such paper or article to the delegates attending the meeting;

for the author's employer, if the article is a 'work for hire', made within the scope of the author's employment, the right to use all or part of the information in (any version of) the article for other intra-company use (e.g. training);

patent and trademark rights and rights to any process or procedure described in the article; the right to include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially);

the right to use the article or any part thereof in a printed compilation of works of the author, such as collected writings or lecture notes (subsequent to publication of the article in the journal); and

the right to prepare other derivative works, to extend the article into book-length form, or to otherwise re-use portions or excerpts in other works, with full acknowledgement of its original publication in the journal."

III. Elsevier thougths on why it needs exclusive rights?

"The research community needs certainty with respect to the validity (IS: see footnote 1), normally obtained through the peer review process, of scientific papers. The scientific record must be clear and unambiguous. Elsevier believes that by obtaining the exclusive distribution right it will always be clear to researchers that, when they access an Elsevier site to review a paper, they are reading a final version of the paper which has been edited, peer-reviewed, and accepted for publication in an appropriate journal. See also our information on electronic preprints for more detailed discussion on these points."

Source: Copyright information. Elsevier Web site (Last viewed 25 March 2005) [Full Text]

Footnote 1: Please note that Elsevier apparently does not care of broken integrity by its flagship journals, such as Neuron, Cell, Brain Research. For details on this matter please see written evidence for UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee Inquiry on Scientific Publication ("Editorial and Publisher Corruption", pp. 394-404, Ev386, Science and Technology - Tenth Report, Volume II, Oral and Written Evidence, House of Commons Publication HC399II 20 July 2004), also available as a .PDF imprint of original submission.

Open Access V-day: APS Capitulation Costs 1500$ Per Published Article, No Other Condition Set

American Physiological Society (APS), a leading force behind DC Pact, a long-standing anti-Open Access worrior (also accused in breaking ethics in scholar publication), is introducing Open Access for one of its' flagship journal, Physiological Genomics (also available at HighWire site).

The APS advertisement displayed in the latest issue of The Scientist (see Vol.19, No. 5, 14 March 2005, p. 37 for full page ad entitled "Physiological Genomics, an Open Access Journal") says that Physiological Genomics "authors can choose to pay a $1500 fee to have their article published online with Open Access from the first date of publication or choose to pay no author fees and leave their article under Subscription Access." Further info is offered at this link .

A Primer for Israel Research and Scholar Authorities

"Four French research agencies agree on common OA archiving policy," a good example for Israel Science Agencies:

"Four major French public research agencies --INRA, CNRS, INRIA, and Inserm-- issued a joint press release today announcing a common policy to launch OA archives to disseminate their research output. All four agencies were among the original signatories of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge (October 22, 2003). So today's news is not that the agencies endorse OA, but that they are implementing their commitment through OA archives. Under their new, common policy, they will encourage their researchers to deposit their publications as well as their raw data in the new institutional repositories. This step is a direct result of the Berlin3 meeting (Southampton, February 28 - March 1, 2005), though the agencies also cite the Gibson committee report from the UK House of Commons (July 20, 2004) and the NIH public-access policy (February 3, 2005). At the same time, INRA and CNRS have signed the Registry of Institutional OA Self-Archiving Policies. INRIA and Inserm may sign soon as well."

Source: Peter Suber. Four French research agencies agree on common OA archiving policy. Open Access News (22 March 2005) [FullText]

Ph.D. Student Viewpoint: Scientists, Consider Where You Publish

Quoting the abstract and the final paragraph of an opinion article in Israel-based Open Access Journal Neurobiology of Lipids:

"For scientists, publishing a paper in a respected peer-reviewed journal marks the culmination of successful research. But some of the most prestigious and sought-after journals are so costly to access that a growing number of academic libraries can't afford to subscribe.

Before submitting your next manuscript, consider a journal's access policy alongside its prestige - and weigh the implications of publishing in such costly periodicals. Two distinct problems continue to plague scientific publishing. First, institutional journal subscription costs are skyrocketing so fast that they outstrip the ability of many libraries to pay, threatening to sever scientists from the literature. Second, the taxpaying public funds a terrific amount of research in this country, and with few exceptions, can't access any of it. These problems share a common root - paid access to the scientific literature..."

"...before you fire off that next manuscript to Cell, consider this: scientific journals exist to record and disseminate research results, not to make publishers rich or restrict access to vital information. Some journals are already working to provide someform of free access to published work - others steadfastly refuse and fight any government pressure to do so. True open access alternatives do exist, and with the arrival of high-profile journals like PLoS Biology, PLoS Medicine and PLoS Genetics, they can be quite prestigious indeed. Familiarize yourself with the landscape before choosing sides. As educated scientists, it may be refreshing to consider that where you publish is but a shorthand for the quality of your work. You do, always, have a choice."

Source: Michael Seringhaus. Scientists, consider where you publish. Neurobiol. Lipids Vol. 3, 10 (2 November 2004) [FullText]

Science Magazine Does Not Require Copyright Transfer, Permits Postscript Archiving

I. Does Science require copyright transfer?

"No. Authors retain copyright of their work, but must grant an exclusive publication license to Science and AAAS for their paper to be accepted for publication. Further details on this license are available here. Authors with questions about copyright transfer should contact one of the deputy editors."

Source: Does Science require copyright transfer? The Science Contributors FAQ. Science magazine web site (last viewed 22 March 2005) [FullText] [Authors FAQs FullText]

II. License to Publish: Information for Authors

"A signed License to Publish must be submitted to AAAS before a manuscript can be accepted for publicationin Science...

3. Science authors grant to AAAS exclusive rights to use and authorize use of their Work, however, they retain copyright in the Work as well as rights to make certain uses of the Work. These rights are listed in the License to Publish and may be exercised by authors without any further permission from AAAS. Once the Work has been published in Science and provided the Work's first appearance in Science is properly cited, authors may:

Reprint the Work in print collections of the author's own writings For example, the author may reprint the Work in a book consisting wholly of material written by the author. The Work's first appearance in Science must be properly cited. Written approval must be obtained in advance from AAAS by the author or publisher for use of the Work in publications that include works written by others.

Reprint the Work in print format for inclusion in a thesis or dissertation that the author writes The author may reprint the Work, in print format, with proper credit to the Work's appearance in Science, in a thesis or dissertation written by the author as part of a course of study at an educational institution. If the thesis or dissertation is to be published in electronic format, the accepted version of the Work should be used and a link to the Work on the Science website included.

Present the Work orally The Work may be read, in full or in part in front of an audience of any size. Advance written approval must be obtained from AAAS to distribute sound recordings of any such oral presentation.?

Reproduce the Work for use in courses the author is teaching (If the author is employed by an academic institution, that institution may also reproduce the Work for classroom use) The Work may be reproduced in photocopy format for distribution as stand- alone handouts or as part of a packet, or electronically for use by students enrolled in the course the author is teaching, with proper credit to the Work's first appearance in Science. If the author is employed by an academic institution, that institution may reproduce the Work as well, solely for classroom purposes, in either photocopy or electronic format, provided the Work is properly cited and provided that access to the Work is available only to students enrolled in courses offered by that institution.

Distribute photocopies of the Work to colleagues for non- commercial purposes only (providing that recipients are informed that they may not further distribute or copy the Work)Authors may distribute photocopies or download and email the Science PDF to their colleagues for their colleagues' personal use provided the recipients understand that the copy may not be further distributed or reproduced without the approval of AAAS.

Post a copy of the accepted version of the Work on the author's personal website After the article has been published in Science, authors may post the accepted version on their personal website on the condition that credit is given to the Work's appearance in the appropriate issue of Science and the reposted article includes a hyperlink to the Work on the Science web site. Authors may provide access to the Science version of their article from their website by taking advantage of our referrer linking service. Science provides one free referrer link per article, which enables free access to the article on Science Online, as well as the article's corresponding links, Supporting Online Material, and Science PDF. Information on this service will be emailed to the corresponding author a few days after the article has been published. To qualify as a personal website the site must be devoted to the author's research and owned by the author (or if the author's employer is a non- profit institution, owned by that institution).

Reuse figures and tables created by the author in future works the author writes Figures and tables may be used in any works the author writes, including print works and electronic works, without any further permission from AAAS but provided proper credit is given to their appearance in the appropriate issue of Science...

Note for authors who have published with Science under earlier agreements:

AAAS is happy to extend the same re- use rights that are granted to authors under our current agreement to all authors who have published papers previously in Science , including the right to reprint the Work in print collections of the author?s own writings, in the author?s thesis, and the right to use figures and tables in future works the author writes (see above for further explanation of these rights)..."

Source: License to Publish: Information for authors. Science magazine web site (last viewed 22 March 2005) [PDF FullText]

III. License to Publish: Grant of License form specific wording

"The following Grant of License (" License") must be signed and returned to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (" AAAS") before a manuscript can be accepted for publication...

2. Ownership of the copyright shall remain with the Author, subject to the rights granted to AAAS in paragraph 1. AAAS shall be the holder of title for purpose of registration.

3. Author also retains the non- exclusive right to use the Work in the following ways without further permission but only after publication of the Work in SCIENCE and subject to the requirement that credit be given to its first publication in the appropriate issue of SCIENCE: 1) Reprint the Work in print collections of Author's own writings; 2) Reprint the Work in print format for inclusion in a thesis or dissertation that the author writes; 3) Present the Work orally; 4) Reproduce the Work for use in courses the Author is teaching (If the author is employed by an academic institution, that institution may also reproduce the Work for course teaching); 5) Distribute photocopies of the Work to colleagues for non- commercial purposes only (providing that recipients are informed that they may not further distribute or copy the Work); 6) Post a copy of the accepted version of the Work (the accepted version of the paper before Science's and production) on the author's personal website, provided a hyperlink to the Work on the SCIENCE web copy-editing site is included; 7) Reuse figures and tables created by the Author in future works the Author writes; 8) If the Work is prepared as a work made for hire, the author's employer may make photocopies for internal use only; 9) Author may use or authorize use of Supporting Online Material associated with the Work for any purpose and in any format. 4. In order that we may preserve the commercial value of our publication, Author agrees to obtain authorization fromAAAS in advance for any uses not expressly described in paragraph 3..."

Source: License to Publish Form. Science magazine web site (last viewed 22 March 2005) [PDF FullText]

Major Open Access News Source noted Israel Scholar Communication Scrolls

"Alexei Koudinov and the non-profit organization, Israel Scholar, have launched Israel Scholar Communication Scrolls, a blog devoted to scholarly communication and open access in Israel. Quoting the blog on its mission: "Israel Scholar is a web based independent non-profit educational organization. Run by scholars, it aims to promote and unite global Israel Scholarship. Israel Scholar, its partners in Israel and across the global academic world are reshaping scholarly communication. Taking advantage of the modern Internet technology and its end-user availability, Israel Scholar is setting the Israel Scholar Archive, where every Israel and/or Jewish scholar could personally permanently archive his or her creative work, and make it freely available for peers and for the public. Such archive will thus provide a platform to have Israel scholars rights to regain control over their scholarship realised easily. More info on Israel Scholar Archive will be available shortly."

Source: Peter Suber. New blog on scholarship and OA in Israel. Open Access News Blog (18 March 2005) [FullText]

An Insider Concerns on Standards in Hiring Professional Librarians in Israel

"If someone in the administration wishes to hire his/her own favored candidate and has the authority to override any other choices made by the heads of the library, is there any way to uphold professional selection of librarians and raise standards?

That is, if an educational institution advertises for competitive prospects, organizes a professional committee of peers, prepares a listof requirements and a job description, evaluates and recommends the best qualified candidate, wouldn't that be better than members of the administration placing librarians in positions without any consideration to the proper methods of hiring? Even though blatant, shameless and arrogant favoritism/protekzia is common in this beloved nation, ought not the process of professional selection be at least attempted? Only then should preferences and political strong-arming from the administration be allowed.

Has anyone had SUCCESSFUL experience in dealing with this issue? For example, how can the administration be held accountable to its own standards of academic professionalism? Are we simply helpless, dependent clerical workers without influence? Can we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps? Can we say "no, here is a better way?"

I'd be grateful for your responses."

Source: Hananya Goodman. Standards in hiring professional librarians. Israeli Information Retrieval Specialists List (10 May 2004) [FullText]

University of Haifa Library Takes a Stance on Expensive Publishers of Journals

"Commercial publishers take advantage of their control (monopoly) of knowledge created mainly in universities, and sell their journals at high prices. In order to get online access to the required journals, academic libraries are forced to acquire bundled packages which include all the publisher's journals, and they are not allowed to cancel any journal. This is a heavy burden on library budgets.

Top universities have started a campaign against Elsevier, the publisher leading the above process. Cornell University Library has decided demonstratively not to acquire the Elsevier bundled package, although the price of individual journals is higher, and as a result, the saving is small and the bibliographic loss is significant. Other universities, including the Israeli university library consortium, Malmad, have conducted a long and insistent negotiation with Elsevier without much success. The commercial publishers are determined to keep prices high, and the universities cannot give up the need for information.

Academic staff members abroad, who are aware of this situation, suggested taking steps against expensive publishers, such as not publishing with them, not refereeing, refusing participation in editorial boards of their journals. It was also suggested to take an active public stance against expensive publishers and publicize the steps taken against them. Another solution which is in development now is the creation of new electronic journals which will not be dependent on commercial publishers."

This announcement was initiated by the Technion library committee. Comments and suggestions can be email to Nurit Roitberg: roitberg[at]tx.technion.ac.il

Source: Taking a stance on expensive publishers of journals. University of Haifa, The library (updated 15 March 2005) [FullText]

Nature Does Not Require Authors to Assign Copyright and Encourages Poscript Archiving

"Nature does not require authors to assign copyright of their published contributions. See http://npg.nature.com/authornews for details and to download a 'licence to publish' form. Authors are encouraged to submit their version of the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript to their funding body's archive, for public release six months after publication. In addition, authors are encouraged to archive their version of the manuscript in their institution's repositories (as well as on their personal web sites), also six months after the original publication. Authors should cite the publication reference and doi number on any deposited version, and provide a link from it to the published article on Nature's website. Please click here for further information."

Source: 11. Copyright and licence to publish. Nature publication policies. Nature (last viewed 19 March 2005) [FullText]

"As of January 2005, authors of original research papers published by Nature Publishing Group (NPG) will be encouraged to submit the author's version of the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript to their relevant funding body's archive, for release six months after publication. In addition, authors will also be encouraged to archive their version of the manuscript in their institution's repositories (as well as on their personal web sites), also six months after the original publication. This policy has been developed to extend the reach of scientific communications, and to meet the needs of authors and the evolving policies of funding agencies that may wish to archive the research they fund. It is also designed to protect the integrity and authenticity of the scientific record, with the published version clearly identified as the definitive version of the article."

Source: Author License Policy: Nature Publishing Group announces change to self-archiving policy. Nature (last viewed 19 March 2005) [FullText]

Thomson ISI and Open Access, an Update

Excerpt: "Open access (OA) publishing is growing in importance, and, in parallel, the role of institutional repositories (IRs) has come to the forefront of discussion within the library community. The two are intertwined but not synonymous, and different motivations are driving the growth of each. The Thomson Scientific role in promoting institutional repositories' growth was highlighted recently in three workshops held in London, Boston, and Sydney... Our approach to IRs has been different [from our approach to journals]. Repositories represent new ways of organizing research and are taking shape in a variety of experimental forms. They vary in the types of content, the purposes of their creators, and their relationship to researchers. Increasingly, publishers are allowing researchers to archive their own content, and IRs can play a role in aiding researchers in this endeavor. We estimate that publishers now allow over half of all scholarly articles to be archived by their authors, based on average articles published in the journals of the 2003 Journal Citation Report and publishers listed as Project Romeo. But far less than half of all scholarly articles are actually posted to IRs today, often because of lack of awareness and incentive for researchers to do so. Overcoming this barrier is a critical need for IR developers. As one administrator remarked in a planning session: "The key issue is turning now on the willingness of faculty to automatically put stuff into their repository."...Seven institutions joined with us in a Web Citation Index pilot project to explore the proper relationship between ISI Web of Knowledge, Web of Science, and the world of IRs. A collaboration with NEC on the basis of its CiteSeer environment provided the technology partnership to support this new undertaking... The project has run for the past 10 months, and will continue as we move toward release of the full-scale environment for use by researchers over the next several months....At a Thomson Scientific workshop during ALA Midwinter in January 2005, Jean Poland of Cornell University and Katie Clark of the University of Rochester outlined the state of IR development at their institutions, and the potential role of the Web Citation Index in encouraging the growth of IRs. Ms. Clark emphasized the challenge of gaining faculty buy-in, noting that for researchers: "it is all about me and my research", and faculties need to be shown how the IR can help their everyday activities. Ms. Poland pointed out that citation-based tools such as the Web Citation Index can have a positive influence on user awareness and reputation of IRs."

Source: James Pringle. Partnering helps institutional repositories thrive. Thomson Customer News. (February 2005) [FullText] [OA News Record]

Increasing Journal Prices Poses Problem for Library

Excerpt: "Buying about 30,000 journals per year for Penn State students and faculty has become a problem for the Penn State libraries. The escalating prices of serial journals -- all publications that come out more than once a year -- was brought to the attention of the University Faculty Senate in an informational report at Tuesday's meeting. Bonnie MacEwan, assistant dean for collections and scholarly communication, said if the library continues purchasing serial journals, it would run out of money to buy any material at all by 2015. In the past 17 years, a 260 percent increase in serial journal costs has been recorded... In an effort to combat the high cost of the journals, the libraries have taken a series of steps to maintain lower spending. They have cut 6 percent of serial journals... The Penn State Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing was created in October for increased cost-efficient publishing and a greater focus on electronic publishing... The office wants to provide non-commercial publications and scholarly information that professors can use in their research..."

Source: Christiana Varda, Bethany Fehlinger. Increasing journal prices poses problem for library. The Digital Collegian (17 March 2005) [FullText] [OA News Record][Related Article].

Australian Monash Univeristy Launched University ePress

"The pressure to publish, long a bugbear of academic life, has eased at Monash University after the introduction of technology that promises to disseminate work across the world.Enter the ePress, viewed by many as an online godsend. With a click of the mouse, it gives researchers, scholars or students anywhere in the world access to Australian research. "This is the brave new world," said Cathrine Harboe-Ree, chief librarian at Monash. Yesterday, after two years of work, the university launched its ePress, thereby gaining admission to what is still a fairly exclusive club in Australia.

"This is a time of great exploration in academic publishing," Ms Harboe-Ree said. "It is an exciting time where we can look at presenting Australian research to the wider community, and with the ePress we are now well positioned to do that. To be able to present Australian research like this to the world is just a brilliant thing."
RMIT University has the most highly developed university electronic publishing outfit in Australia. The Australian National University, the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney have smaller versions. Melbourne University Press has started to offer some of its material electronically, but the Monash University ePress differs from the others because - at least for the time being - it is focused on highlighting Monash academics and their research.

Academic publishing has long been an industry under pressure. Selling large print-runs of books written for niche markets on shoestring budgets has been part of the problem. Publishers hope electronic dissemination will help reduce the volume of production and improve reach..."

Source: Louise Perry. Publish and be scanned. The Australian (16 March 2005) [FullText] [OA News Record]

Penn State launches digital publishing office

"Penn State University is launching an Office of Digital Scholarly publishing, a collaboration of the university press and the university libraries. From yesterday's press release: 'The principal mission of the Office of Digital Publishing will be to use new media technologies to advance scholarly communication -- at Penn State and beyond. Through projects sponsored by the office, the libraries and the Press will be able to clarify the costs associated with electronic publishing and assess the long-term benefits to the scholarly communication system.... While similar initiatives are under way at other universities, few involve such extensive library-press synergy.... The libraries bring to the office considerable expertise in programming, digitization, Web site development, and access mechanisms such as indexing and metadata. The Press brings its own extensive expertise in editorial matters ranging from peer review to copyediting and developmental editing....One of the first tasks of the Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing will be to build the necessary technical infrastructure for moving journals and monographs to a digital environment. This task already is well under way with the announcement in August that the libraries and the Press have joined forces with Cornell University to develop an open-source publication management system. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is funding the development of this system based on Cornell's innovative publishing software, DPubS (Digital Publishing System). DPubS will be re-engineered as a general-purpose publishing platform for scholarly literature in diverse fields. It will support peer review, have extensive administrative functionality, and will provide interoperability with open-source repository systems such as FEDORA and DSpace."

Source: Peter Suber. Penn State launches digital publishing office. Open Access News Blog (16 March 2005) [FullText]

Postprints Service Allows the Public Free Access to UC Scholarly

Excerpt: "The University of California Office of Scholarly Communication recently launched its eScholarship postprints service, allowing the public free access to peer-reviewed articles written by UC faculty. Catherine Candee, director of publishing and strategic initiatives at the OSC, explained three ways that the OSC attempts to improve and change the system of scholarly communication. “One way is by working with faculty to try to implement and change the way copyright is managed,” Candee said. “The second way is to work with the library to make informed purchases. The third is to provide alternative publishing platforms and services.”

The postprints service is an addition to the already existing eScholarship repository launched in 2002, which contains working papers, technical papers, professional reports, journals and monographs. Candee built and developed the repository and the postprints service in hopes that it will help fulfill the mission of the OSC. “The postprints service is a nice concentration on those aims in that there is an immediate aim of encouraging scholars to have direct control over their scholarly output,” Candee said. “They’re reclaiming it and we’re taking content that is generally unavailable to most of the world and making it widely available.” Candee also explained that the postprints service rose out of faculty concerns with the increasing costs of publishing at the UC negotiations with certain publishers last year. “When the negotiations focused faculty attention on the outrageous prices that [publishers] are charging for materials and because we are able to afford a shrinking percentage of them, we cannot get access to badly needed research,” Candee said. “It really animated faculty. It angered them and motivated them in a way they have never been before.” George Blumenthal, chair of the UC systemwide academic senate, expressed the increasing support of electronic publishing. “UC faculty and the [academic] senate have been extremely supportive of electronic publishing, particularly of journals and eScholarship, largely because of concerns that the cost of journals, of printed journals and even commercial electronic journals, has been rising almost exponentially,” Blumenthal said.

According to Candee, the cost of developing the postprints service was miniscule compared to publishing fees. “We’ve spent less than $20,000 on research and development for the service, but that is because the [eScholarship repository] is already in place,” Candee said. “Compared to the more than $20 million UC spends on serials [publications], the development and operational costs of the repository are relatively minor.” William R. Schonfeld, professor of political science and the director of the Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine, explained that the CSD has been depositing to the repository for a few years now. Because of the repository, the research that CSD has done circulates easily and quickly. “The eScholarship repository has been an invaluable vehicle for sharing findings from our center faculty and graduate fellows with a wide international audience,” Schonfeld said. “After we joined the eScholarship repository, we have seen the readership of our paper series double each year.”

Schonfeld also explained that the postprints service will allow people to see research more quickly. “There can be a delay of more than a year between the time that a professional journal says, ‘We will publish your article’ and the time that they actually publish it,” Schonfeld said. “This technology allows during that period of time, a person to share that work with other people in a very easy way.” The only issue that has been raised regarding the postprints service is the issue of plagiarism, but Candee does not feel that it outweighs the benefits of sharing information. “There’s always the concern that ideas can be stolen and it’s easier when everything is up on the Web, but that problem has always existed,” Candee said. The outlook for where the postprints service will lead are optimistic. “We think that the university is a source of knowledge that should be shared with society and by unfettering the access to all this, it will lead to a more vibrant, intellectual community and a more vibrant state for the society and economy,” Candee said.

Blumenthal believes that the postprints service will become an establishment adopted by institutions of research, especially publicly funded research..."

Source: Christine Tsai. Postprints Service Allows the Public Free Access to UC Scholarly. New University (14 March 2005) [FullText].

American Chemical Society Broadens Article Access

Excerpt: 'The American Chemical Society is broadening access to research articles published in its scholarly journals. The society is introducing two experimental policies that define how readers can view free digital versions of the articles beginning one year after publication. The first policy represents a response to public access guidelines recently released by the National Institutes of Health....NIH encourages authors whose work it funds to submit their peer-reviewed manuscripts to PubMed Central, the agency's free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. ACS has decided to take on the task of submission to PubMed Central on behalf of its authors, according to Robert D. Bovenschulte, president of the society's Publications Division. ACS will authorize PubMed Central to make the authors' versions of unedited manuscripts available to the public 12 months after the edited, final articles are published by ACS. ACS's second policy experiment may have even more far-reaching consequences. ACS authors already had the right to distribute up to 50 free digital reprints by directing interested readers to a unique ACS website address for their final published articles. Now ACS will allow unlimited free access to published articles via these same author-directed online links by eliminating the limit one year after publication."

Source: Sophie Rovner. ACS Broadens Article Access: Conditions set for free availability one year after publication. Chemical and Engineering News. (7 March 2005) [FullText] [OANews Coverage]

A primer of creating ready for publication manuscript announced by BMC

"BioMed Central has announced an interesting partnership with Wolfram Publicon, software for formatting technical documents in XML, XHTML, and MathML. From yesterday's announcement: 'Using Wolfram Research's new Wolfram Publicon software, authors gain the unique advantage of being able to submit properly structured documents ready for direct publication by BioMed Central, the leading Open Access publisher...."Publicon was created primarily for electronic publishing and is ideal for implementing the Open Access publishing model," said André Kuzniarek, manager of document technology at Wolfram Research. "It helps the STM publishing community simplify its publication processes."...As part of this partnership, Publicon is being offered at a specially discounted price. In addition, BioMed Central is giving a discount off the article processing charge to authors who submit their work using Publicon.'

From BMC's page on the Publicon partnership: 'Publicon also offers a BioMed Central article template, and supports export in BioMed Central's native XML format, which makes it an ideal tool for BioMed Central authors. Publicon notebook files authored using the BioMed Central template can be submitted directly to BioMed Central, and offer authors the following benefits: [1] a template which streamlines the process of creating a correctly formatted manuscript, [2] full support for complex mathematical formula and equations, [3] automatic conversion to XML within BioMed Central's production system, leading to: [3a] faster manuscript processing, [3b] avoidance of typographical errors introduced during XML markup, and [4] a £30 discount on the Article Processing Charge payable when the article is published.'"

Source: Peter Suber. BMC reduces processing fee for papers submitted with Publicon. Open Access News Blog (6 March 2005) [FullText]

NIH Definition of Open Access Publication

"In April 2003, a group of individuals interested in promoting open access to the scientific literature met at the headquarters of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and drafted a statement of principles that is now referred to as the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing. The statement includes the definition of an open access publication reproduced below.

Definition of Open Access Publication* from the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing:

An Open Access Publication1 is one that meets the following two conditions:

1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship**, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.

2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical sciences, PubMed Central (PMC) is such a repository).

*) Open access is a property of individual works, not necessarily journals or publishers.
**) Community standards, rather than copyright law, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now.

Note that this definition of open access goes beyond the simple free access that applies to all full-text content viewable directly in PubMed Central (PMC) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A number of PMC journals make all or most of their contents available as open access publications. See the Open Access list for details.

Depositing Individual Open Access Articles in PMC

In October 2003, PMC began accepting individual open access articles from journals that do not participate in PMC on a routine basis. Any such journal must still meet the basic qualification of being covered by a major abstracting and indexing service or having three members on its editorial board who currently are principal investigators on research grants from major funding agencies. For the specific conditions under which PMC accepts these articles, see the relevant PMC agreement (in Microsoft Word format).

Related Statements on Open Access Publishing

The Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing.
A position statement by the Wellcome Trust in support of open access publishing.
The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities."

Source: About Open Access: Open Access Publishing. PubMedCentral. National Institutes of Health (last updated 7 January 2005, last viewed 1 March 2005) [FullText]