“A storm broke on February 26th when word got out that publisher HarperCollins had unilaterally decided to limit the ‘shelf life’ of its ebooks catalogue. Overdrive, a major distributor of ebooks in the public library world, found itself caught between the publishing powerhouse and a furious library community when it was announced that library loans of ebooks would be capped at 26 …” (more)
[slaw, 21 March]
“This is a brilliant, comprehensive document detailing the scholarly and societal need for an urgent implementation of the open access agenda.” (link)
[Orla Murphy’s blog, 8 March]
“One question that often comes up as we transition to open access publishing is how to assess new open access journals. How do we know that these are legitimate? …” (more)
[The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, 6 March]
“A new survey of nearly 40,000 scholars across the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences shows that almost 90% of them believe open-access journals are good for the research community and the individual researcher. But charges for publishing and the perception that open-access journals are of lower quality than traditional publications deter scholars from the open-access route …” (more)
[Josh Fischman, Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 February]
“… But why publish with a publisher? Why not simply put the book open access on the web? I wonder whether an open access book would be (a) feasible, and (b) all things considered a good thing to do …” (more)
[Ingrid Robeyns, Crooked Timber, 4 February]
“Scientists love open-access papers as readers, but as authors they are still skeptical, according to a new study of available journals and researchers’ attitudes on the topic …” (more)
[HT: Garret McMahon]
[Gretchen Vogel, Science Insider, 14 January]
“2010 was the strongest year for open access growth so far. In 2010, 1,401 journals were added to DOAJ for a total of 5,936 journals. The Electronic Journals Library now records over 27,000 journals that can be read free of charge …” (more)
[The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, 31 December]
“In brief: the Directory of Open Access Journals now lists 5,864 titles, having added more than 1,300 over the past year, or close to 4 titles per day …” (more)
[The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, 11 December]
“As hyperbolic as it may sound, academic publishing is the curator and guardian of the accumulated scientific knowledge of the human race, 1600 to present. It is also a cornerstone of modern science, preferentially selecting well-executed research through the peer review process …” (more)
[HT: Garret McMahon]
[Adam Stevenson, Ars Technica, 29 November]
“More than half a million visits have been made to a website to widen access to Irish academic research. The facility which opened in July allows academics, businesses, media and the taxpayers who fund most Irish research to find expertise and previously unknown information …” (more)
[Niall Murray, Irish Examiner, 21 October]
“Trinity College has adopted a policy similar to that of MIT, Harvard and Stanford to make its scholarly articles available to the public for free online, in a move aimed at broadening access to its research and scholarship …” (more)
[John Kennedy, Silicon Republic, 20 October]
“It’s Open Access Week, a worldwide effort to promote open access ‘as a new norm in scholarship and research’, organized by the folks at the Scholarly Publishing and Resources Coalition, or Sparc …” (more)
[Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 October]
“The 25,000 peer-reviewed journals and refereed conference proceedings that exist today publish about 2.5 million articles per year, across all disciplines, languages and nations. No university or research institution anywhere, not even the richest, can afford to subscribe to all or most of the journals …” (more)
[Science of the Invisible, 19 October]
“The June 30, 2010 issue of The Dramatic Growth of Open Access is now available for viewing or open data download. Highlights this quarter: Open access policy continues to be the headline growth story …” (more)
[The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, 30 June]
“Academics remain reluctant to allow their journal articles to be deposited in open-access repositories, according to the Oxford University Press. The press announced Thursday that the percentage of Oxford Press articles authorized for re-publication in its open-access repository decreased overall from 6.7 to 5.9 percent between 2008 and 2009 …” (more)
[Inside Higher Ed, 11 June]
“Ireland’s new national portal for Open Access to Irish published research goes live today. RIAN – http://www.rian.ie – will act as a single point of access to national research output, and contains content harvested from the institutional repositories of the seven Irish Universities and Dublin Institute of Technology …” (more)
[Education Ireland, 8 June]
“Debate in scholarship is a healthy sign – and this new debate amongst open access advocates, as recently emerged in the national meeting of Canada’s Federation of Social Sciences and Humanities, is most welcome! It seems that there is a divergence of opinion amongst open access advocates …” (more)
[The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, 6 June]
“Enabling Open Scholarship has just released David Prosser’s Open Access Policies in Europe. This succinct overview by one of open access’ most noteworthy champions is a must-read for anyone involved in OA policy development or advocacy.” (link)
[The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, 29 May]
“Recently in the Liblicense list, the idea came up that publishers could simply refuse to publish works by authors covered by open access policies. Of course, this is their right! Publishers who share such view might wish to get together and form a new association, to plan their futures together. Here is my suggestion for a title for the association: The Journals for Strictly Limited Dissemination of the Works of Unfunded and Unemployed Researchers …” (more)
[The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, 28 May]
“… it is nonsense to suggest that the private sector has a meaningful role in long-term maintenance of scholarly articles. A private sector publisher is completely within its rights to cease to exist, or change business operations, at any time …” (more)
[The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, 12 May]
Ninth Level Ireland 