Saturday, May 28, 2005

More on ACS v. PubChem: Bernadette Toner, Parties on Both Sides of CAS/PubChem Dispute Take to the Web --and the Hill The next chapter in the disagreement between the American Chemical Society and the National Institutes of Health regarding NCBI's PubChem small-molecule database may come via the US Federal Government's FY 2006 appropriations bill, which is currently in the hands of the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies [...] Ohio Congressman Ralph Regula, chairman of the House subcommittee, is considering adding language to the appropriations bill that would address ACS' concerns, although the specifics of what that language would be --and whether it would limit PubChem's scope or funding-- are still unclear. [...] Toner also summarizes the ACS public statement and the SPARC-OAWG public response. (Via Open Access News.) The ACS conveniently leaves out the main reason why resources like PubMded and PubChem are so needed and go way beyond what the ACS and other commercial or society publishers have been able to create: their openness allows third parties to create derived research knowledge by using database and text processing methods to link multiple information sources. Search engines have only scratched the surface of what is possible here. PubMed is already being mined for potentially important knowledge, for example. Those experiments would be impossible if they required acquiring or negotiating special terms for closed databases. The mission of the ACS is ... to encourage in the broadest and most liberal manner the advancement of the chemical enterprise and its practitioners The ACS is a tax-exempt organization, chartered by Congress. It is difficult to see how lobbying Congress to curtail public access to chemical information supports that mission, or is compatible with the organization's tax-exempt status. What it seems is that the ACS is trying to protect its business model, regardless of its supposed public interest mission, so that it keeps its power, control, and big staff: yet another public-interest organization that puts self-preservation above its original mission. 9:18:33 PM

satellite radio and ipods: I was listening to a BBC review of recent technology news and mention was made of the CEO of Sirius talking to Steve Jobs at D. I don't understand why so many people are hot on the merger of the two. [...] Did I say Internet delivery? [...] Flying multiple birds and creating studios that offer much better programming that is available in most of the country on FM is a non trivial achievement. I just can't see them competing with what is emerging. (Via tingilinde.) Satellite radio stations have acquired some good programming. I would be happy to pay a (smallish) subscription to Internet download (via the forthcoming iTunes podcast receiver?) some of the shows I know are on Sirius, and some of the shows I've heard on XM. I'd download the shows into my iPod overnight and listen to them at the gym. 11:37:54 AM