Open Access : Survey of faculty attitudes toward online journals. Vincent Kiernan, Professors Are Unhappy With Limitations of Online Resources, Survey Finds, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 2004 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt: "In the survey, conducted last fall, 81 percent of the faculty members agreed that unavailability of journal articles was a 'substantial problem' for them, up from 68 percent in a similar survey conducted in 2000. In addition, 65 percent of those surveyed last year strongly agreed that 'the process of locating information in academic journal literature is tedious and often hit-or-miss, and the act of physically searching through hard-copy collections is much too time-consuming and onerous.' Fifty-nine percent had agreed with that statement three years earlier....Survey participants were given a list of possibly desirable characteristics of a scholarly journal and asked to select those that were 'very important' to faculty members. The characteristic that received the most votes -- from 87 percent of respondents -- was wide circulation. Three-fourths said a journal should ensure that its archives will be preserved indefinitely, 69 percent said publishing an article should be free for authors, and 58 percent said the journal should be available to readers free. Fifty-two percent said the journal should be highly selective." The study was conducted by Ithaka, the new Mellon-created umbrella organization for a series of upcoming initiatives in scholarly communication. [Open Access News]  12:58:29 PM   [Feedback ]  

Open Access : Lie down, take 2 aspirin, and read OA literature. If reliable medical information is free online, then doctors can "prescribe" it to patients who are ready to read it. That's the idea behind a new program launched today by National Library of Medicine and the American College of Physicians Foundation. The program encourages physicians "to "prescribe" information for their patients from MedlinePlus using a special 'prescription pad' during office visits." Quoting NLM Director Donald Lindberg: "Physicians have always known that an informed patient who takes an active role is a 'better' patient. We believe that both patients and their doctors will welcome this additional medical tool -- good medical information -- in their continuing efforts to provide good health care." More from yesterday's press release: "Today, 80 percent of U.S. adults online use the Internet to find health information, and most say it helps them get better health care, according to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project....The ACPF and NLM program provides participating internists with a poster, bookmarks, and a supply of prescription pads on which they can write in a disease or condition and advise patients how to look up the information on MedlinePlus. The NLM's National Network of Libraries of Medicine will help patients who have questions about access to MedlinePlus." (PS: All you need for this superb public service is open access and peer-reviewed reliability. MedLinePlus has more: award-winning clarity and ease of use for the lay user. An excellent example of your tax dollars at work.) [Open Access News]  12:57:50 PM   [Feedback ]  

RFID : UHF Spec proposed for International RFID. SEO writes "The new proposed specification for the next generation of RFID (define) technology isultra-high-frequency short-range communicationsthat will interoperate on an international level.http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/334315 1" [LISNews.com]  7:52:16 AM   [Feedback ]  

Internet : Serious flaw discovered in the Internet. Steffers writes "Yahoo! reports that security experts and ISPs have been quietly working for months to seal a serious flaw in the Internet. The flaw takes advantage of weaknesses in the TCP and could be used to bring large-scale instability to the Internet." [LISNews.com]  7:51:52 AM   [Feedback ]  

Open Access : OA repository for sheet music. Indiana University has launched an OA repository for sheet music. Quoting the press release: "The site currently provides access to metadata and some digital images from two sheet music collections from the Indiana University Lilly Library. Metadata is available for the approximately 24,000 pieces in the Lilly Library's Sam DeVincent Collection of American Sheet Music, along with digital images from over 1,000 pieces in this collection. Metadata for over 500 pieces from the Lilly's Starr Sheet Music Collection is available, as are digital images for most of the Starr items. This site supplements access to metadata for these two sheet music collections that has been available to Open Archives Initiative (OAI) metadata harvesters such as the Sheet Music Consortium, the UIUC Digital Gateway to Cultural Heritage Materials, and the University of Michigan's OAIster project since early 2003." [Open Access News]  7:51:10 AM   [Feedback ]