Category Archives: oa.retro

JHU Press celebrates Open Access Week by releasing 100 out-of-print titles online for free | Hub

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“Johns Hopkins University Press is marking International Open Access Week this week with the release of 100 newly digitized open access books, including many seminal works by distinguished scholars that have been unavailable in recent years. The works are accessible for free through Project MUSE, the massive online collection of scholarship based at Johns Hopkins, which now offers opportunities for publishers to host free and open access content.

The release also represents the halfway point of the Hopkins Open Publishing: Encore Editions initiative, which aims to create open access digital editions as well as print-on-demand paperback editions of more than 200 titles drawn from the Press’s backlist of noteworthy but currently out-of-print titles. The initiative is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities….”

Invitation to participate in a new project: Help open journals’ deep backfiles | Everybody’s Libraries

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“As I’ve noted here previously, there’s a wealth of serial content published in the 20th century that’s in the public domain, but not yet freely available online, often due to uncertainty about its copyright (and the resulting hesitation to digitize it).  Thanks to IMLS-supported work we did at Penn, we’ve produced a complete inventory of serials from the first half of the 20th century that still have active copyright renewals associated with them. And I’ve noted that there was far more serial material without active copyright, as late as the 1960s or even later.  We’ve also produced a guide to determining whether particular serial content you may be interested in is in the public domain.

Now that we’ve spent a lot of time surveying what is still in copyright though, it’s worth turning more focused attention to serial content that isn’t in copyright, but still of interest to researchers.  One way we can identify journals whose older issues (sometimes known as their “deep backfiles”) are still of interest to researchers and libraries is to see which ones are included in packages that are sold or licensed to libraries.   Major vendors of online journals publish spreadsheets of their backfile offerings, keyed by ISSN.  And now, thanks to an increasing amount of serial information in Wikidata (including links to our serials knowledge base) it’s possible to systematically construct inventories of serials in these packages that include, or might include, public domain and other openly accessible content….”

OAPEN and De Gruyter enable retroactive open access for ERC-funded publications

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“The OAPEN Foundation and De Gruyter have developed a framework agreement that outlines good practice for retroactive open access to books and chapters resulting from research funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the 7th EU Research Framework Programme (FP7).

Since FP7 did not include a strict open access mandate for publications, publications resulting from these grants are generally not freely accessible. The framework agreement between De Gruyter and the OAPEN Foundation supports authors by establishing compliance with the “best effort” requirement to make publications open access….”

OAPEN and De Gruyter enable retroactive open access for ERC-funded publications

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“The OAPEN Foundation and De Gruyter have developed a framework agreement that outlines good practice for retroactive open access to books and chapters resulting from research funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the 7th EU Research Framework Programme (FP7).

Since FP7 did not include a strict open access mandate for publications, publications resulting from these grants are generally not freely accessible. The framework agreement between De Gruyter and the OAPEN Foundation supports authors by establishing compliance with the ‘best effort’ requirement to make publications open access….”

APHA unlocks free public access to articles on firearms issues and research

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“The American Public Health Association (APHA) is offering free access to peer-reviewed research articles and commentaries on firearms and public health published in the American Journal of Public Health. Available articles cover topics such as firearm storage practices in the United States, public opinion on the issue of carrying guns in public places, and state firearm laws. In a statement, the APHA says it hopes this action will “lead to smarter evidence-based policies that enhance firearm safety and violence prevention.” Going forward, the journal will continue free public access to all research on the topic.”

Rights Holder Creative Commons Declaration Form | www.hathitrust… | HathiTrust Digital Library

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“If you are a copyright holder or a representative of a copyright holder of a work in HathiTrust and would like to authorize the work to be opened for full view, the following form enables you to select a Creative Commons license and authorize HathiTrust to release the work….”

Making Early European Books Open Access | On the Trail of the Bianchi of 1399

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“The Wellcome Library’s Early Modern European Book collection is currently accessible at Early European Books online. At the moment, you need a login and to physically be in the UK to see these books. The Wellcome are in the process of making 10% of these holdings open access, and I’m getting to choose about 200 volumes for this purpose. Incunabula, so books from the first 50 years of printing, will be automatically included, so I’m looking through the catalogue at books printed after around 1500.

[…]

I’m making a database of the books I’m choosing to show why I’ve selected them, so which criteria they fulfil as well as explaining why that particular volume is exciting. I’ll be blogging about some of the most exciting things I find. For now, I’ll have to go to the rare books room at the Wellcome library to take my own photos, but once this project is complete, you’ll be able to read the selected books online for free.”

OLH flips innovative archaeology conference proceedings to open access journal | Open Library of Humanities

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“We are really pleased to announce that in Summer 2017 the OLH will be publishing the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal (TRAJ). Formerly an annual conference proceedings volume published primarily by Oxbow Books (a leading publisher within the fields of archaeology and ancient history), the journal developed out of the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC), which has been running annually since 1991. As part of this move, we will be making 22 years of the journal’s published catalogue openly available on the OLH platform.

TRAJ is an innovative journal that promotes the use of new theoretical approaches to the Roman past, facilitating fresh interpretations of datasets rather than solely the presentation of archaeological data (as commonly deployed in archaeology scholarship). The publication will build on this strong foundation to continue attracting submissions within the disciplines of Archaeology, Classics and Ancient History, as well as interdisciplinary work drawing on the Biological Sciences, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Having consistently published innovative and thought-provoking papers derived from annual conferences held across Europe and America since 1991, the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC) has established a reputation as an unorthodox and radical event in the scholarly calendar, which has had a major impact on the theoretical landscape of Roman Archaeology.”

Acta Mathematica

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“Acta Mathematica will be produced and distributed in print and online exclusively by International Press, beginning with volume 218 (2017).

Also, by arrangement with the Institut Mittag-Leffler, International Press now provides fully open online access to the entire content of Acta Mathematica — from its first issue of 1882 to the most recent.”

PBJ is now a leading open access plant journal – Daniell – 2017 – Plant Biotechnology Journal – Wiley Online Library

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“Welcome to the first issue of the fifteenth volume of Plant Biotechnology Journal. I would like to start this editorial by announcing the successful transition of PBJ from a subscription-based journal to an open access journal supported exclusively by authors. This resulted in enhanced free global access to all readers. I applaud the PBJ management team for offering free open access to all articles published in this journal in the past 14 years. As the first among the top ten open access plant science journals, based on 2016 citations, PBJ is very likely to be ranked among the top three journals publishing original research. PBJ is now compatible with mobile platforms, tablets, iPads, and iPhones and offers several new options to evaluate short- and long-term impact of published articles, including Altmetric scores, article readership, and citations….”

Why and how to scan printed papers

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“Open access to the mathematical literature is an important goal.

Each of us can contribute to that goal by making available electronically as much of our own work as feasible.

 

Our recent work is likely already in computer readable form and should be made available variously in TeX source, dvi, pdf (Adobe Acrobat), or PostScript form. Publications from the pre-TeX era can be scanned and/or digitally photographed. Retyping in TeX is not as unthinkable as first appears.

 

Our action will have greatly enlarged the reservoir of freely available primary mathematical material, particularly helping scientists working without adequate library access.

 

Recommendation of the Committee on Electronic Information and Communication of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), endorsed by the IMU Executive Committee on Mai 15, 2001 in its 68th’s session in Princeton, NJ….”

Harvard Law Library Readies Trove of Decisions for Digital Age – The New York Times

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“Shelves of law books are an august symbol of legal practice, and no place, save the Library of Congress, can match the collection at Harvard’s Law School Library. Its trove includes nearly every state, federal, territorial and tribal judicial decision since colonial times — a priceless potential resource for everyone from legal scholars to defense lawyers trying to challenge a criminal conviction.

Now, in a digital-age sacrifice intended to serve grand intentions, the Harvard librarians are slicing off the spines of all but the rarest volumes and feeding some 40 million pages through a high-speed scanner. They are taking this once unthinkable step to create a complete, searchable database of American case law that will be offered free on the Internet, allowing instant retrieval of vital records that usually must be paid for….”