Scholarly Communication : Open Access : Obstacles facing OA. Bo-Christer Björk, Open access to scientific publications - an analysis of the barriers to change? Information Research, January 2004. Abstract: "One of the effects of the Internet is that the dissemination of scientific publications in a few years has migrated to electronic formats. The basic business practices between libraries and publishers for selling and buying the content, however, have not changed much. In protest against the high subscription prices of mainstream publishers, scientists have started Open Access (OA) journals and e-print repositories, which distribute scientific information freely. Despite widespread agreement among academics that OA would be the optimal distribution mode for publicly financed research results, such channels still constitute only a marginal phenomenon in the global scholarly communication system. This paper discusses, in view of the experiences of the last ten years, the many barriers hindering a rapid proliferation of Open Access. The discussion is structured according to the main OA channels; peer-reviewed journals for primary publishing, subject-specific and institutional repositories for secondary parallel publishing. It also discusses the types of barriers, which can be classified as consisting of the legal framework, the information technology infrastructure, business models, indexing services and standards, the academic reward system, marketing, and critical mass." (Thanks to Mine Shinji.) [Open Access News]  10:24:56 AM   [Feedback ]  

Weblogs : Blogs at the University Libraries.

As more universities get involved in campus-wide weblog projects, I see more libraries being on the forefront in these efforts. Take The University of Minnesota Libraries. They are working to get weblogs to their campus community. Maybe there needs to be a weblog about the various universities that are going (or need help going) this route. (link via Blog Drivers Waltz) [Library Stuff]

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Scholarly Publishing : Open Access: OA in action. Barbara Cohen, PLoS Biology in Action, PLoS Biology, January 2004. How the OA articles in PLoS Biology have already been used and how they can be used. Articles have been downloaded, modified and added to online encyclopedias where they are open to further modification, translated into other languages, and printed or transferred to CD-ROM for users without connectivity. All this is already permitted by the journal's Creative Commons license, so that users needn't wast time asking permission or pay fees to obtain it. Still to come: PLoS will work with software developers to produce tools for text- and data-mining of the XML versions of its articles. [Open Access News]  8:38:14 AM   [Feedback ]