Andrew Flinn describes some recent developments in democratising the archive and asks whether these developments really deserve to be viewed as a threat to professional and academic standards.

Richard Davis discusses the role of Web preservation in reference management. in an article based on a presentation given at the Innovations in Reference Management workshop, January 2010.

Talat Chaudhri, Julian Cheal, Richard Jones, Mahendra Mahey and Emma Tonkin propose a user-driven methodology for the iterative development, testing and implementation of Dublin Core Application Profiles in diverse repository software environments.

The editor invites you to give your views on Ariadne.

The editor introduces Issue 62.

Photo outside the Panton Arms pub in Cambridge, UK, licensed to the public under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike by jwyg (Jonathan Gray).

Today marked the public announcement of a set of principles on how to treat data, from a legal context, in the sciences. Called the Panton Principles, they were negotiated over the summer between myself, Rufus Pollock, Cameron Neylon, and Peter Murray-Rust. If you’re too busy to read them directly, here’s the gist: publicly funded science data should be in the public domain, full stop.

If you know me and my work, this is nothing new. We have been saying this since late 2007. I’ve already gotten a dozen emails asking me why this is newsworthy, when it’s actually a less normative version of the Science Commons protocol for open access to data (we used words like “must” and “must not” instead of the “should” and “should not” of the principles).

It’s newsworthy to me because it represents a ratification of the ideals embodied in the protocol by two key groups of stakeholders. First, real scientists – Cameron and Peter are two of the most important working scientists in the open science movement. Getting real scientists into the fold, endorsing the importance of the public domain, is essential. They’re also working in the UK, which has some copyright issues around data that can complicate things in a way we forget about here in the post-colonial Americas.

Second, it’s newsworthy because Rufus and I both signed it. Rufus helped to start the Open Knowledge Foundation, and he’s an important scholar of the public domain. We’re in many ways in the same fraternity – we care about “open” deeply, and we want the commons to scale and grow, because we believe in its role in innovation and creation…indeed, in its role in humanity.

But we’re on different sides of a passionate debate about data and licenses. I’m not going to recapitulate it here, you can find it in the googles if you want. Suffice to say we have argued about the role of the public domain as a first principle in general for data, as opposed to the specifics of data in public funded science. But for both of us to sign onto something like this means that even in the midst of heated argument we can find common ground – public money should mean public science, no licenses, no controls on innovation and reuse, globally.

It’s important for the science part. It’s also a good lesson, I hope, that even those of us who find themselves on opposite sides of arguments inside open are usually fighting for the same overall goals. I’ll keep arguing for my points, and Rufus will keep arguing for his, but that should never keep us from remembering the truly common goals we share inside the movement. I’m proud to be a part of it.

Read the comments on this post…

Sale, A., Couture, M., Rodrigues, E., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2010) Open Access Mandates and the “Fair Dealing” Button. In: Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online (Rosemary J. Coombe & Darren Wershler, Eds.)

ABSTRACT: We describe the “Fair Dealing Button,” a feature designed for authors who have deposited their papers in an Open Access Institutional Repository but have deposited them as “Closed Access” (meaning only the metadata are visible and retrievable, not the full eprint) rather than Open Access. The Button allows individual users to request and authors to provide a single eprint via semi-automated email. The purpose of the Button is to tide over research usage needs during any publisher embargo on Open Access and, more importantly, to make it possible for institutions to adopt the “Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access” Mandate, without exceptions or opt-outs, instead of a mandate that allows delayed deposit or deposit waivers, depending on publisher permissions or embargoes (or no mandate at all). This is only “Almost-Open Access,” but in facilitating exception-free immediate-deposit mandates it will accelerate the advent of universal Open Access.

Harnad, S. (2010) The Immediate Practical Implication of the Houghton Report: Provide Green Open Access Now. Prometheus 28 (1): 55-59

ABSTRACT: Among the many important implications of Houghton et al?s (2009) timely and illuminating JISC analysis of the costs and benefits of providing free online access (?Open Access,? OA) to peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific journal articles one stands out as particularly compelling: It would yield a forty-fold benefit/cost ratio if the world?s peer-reviewed research were all self-archived by its authors so as to make it OA. There are many assumptions and estimates underlying Houghton et al?s modelling and analyses, but they are for the most part very reasonable and even conservative. This makes their strongest practical implication particularly striking: The 40-fold benefit/cost ratio of providing Green OA is an order of magnitude greater than all the other potential combinations of alternatives to the status quo analyzed and compared by Houghton et al. This outcome is all the more significant in light of the fact that self-archiving already rests entirely in the hands of the research community (researchers, their institutions and their funders), whereas OA publishing depends on the publishing industry. Perhaps most remarkable is the fact that this outcome emerged from studies that approached the problem primarily from the standpoint of the economics of publication rather than the economics of research.

Houghton, J.W. & Oppenheim, C. (2009) The Economic Implications of Alternative Publishing Models. Prometheus 26(1): 41-54

Houghton, J.W., Rasmussen, B., Sheehan, P.J., Oppenheim, C., Morris, A., Creaser, C., Greenwood, H., Summers, M. and Gourlay, A. (2009). Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models: Exploring the Costs and Benefits, London and Bristol: The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

“All newly published manuscripts must be immediately deposited in the repository in the final reviewed version (not publisher’s proprietary pdf). Deposits will become available immediately or after expiration of embargo…”

One aspect of the Google Books Settlement that concerns me is: what about authors (and publishers) of new books? For example, my book, Scholarly Communication for Librarians, was published in 2009, just months after the date covered by the Google Books Settlement.

This means if Google Books goes ahead, authors who published just a few months before me will have a tremendous advantage in terms of exposure, unless they have opted out.

Also, while copyrighted books must be limited in terms of geographic exposure, what about the growing trend towards open access monographs, which I expect to take off in the very near future with the anticipated release of Open Monographs Press? Already, I have a book chapter in a forthcoming book on Free Knowledge edited by Daryl Hepting. Since this book will be OA, there will be no need to limit access; it should be available to anyone, anywhere. If the Google Books service includes a convenient print-on-demand option, I want in! Royalties, even small ones, would be nice, but if Google makes some money on this service, this is well deserved, in my opinion.

Royal Holloway’s Open Access Publications Policy was approved by its Academic Board in December 2009 to commence 1st September 2010 along with a new research information system. Implementation and evolution will be handled by a cross-College Working Group. With some local variations, the Policy used the University of Stirling as a starting point:

“All journal articles… are to be self-archived in the University?s Digital Research Repository… Articles are to be submitted immediately upon acceptance for publication. The author’s final accepted draft should be submitted.”

The pressure to publish research in China has fuelled a five-fold increase in its scientific paper trade, new research shows.

Kudos to Simon Fraser University & Library for this great news about a new Open Access Fund! Note that there is a link to the full SFU Library Open Access Strategy at the bottom of the page. The SFU Library OA Strategy includes both green and gold, with an institutional repository in place and plans for further development, hosting of more than 200 journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS), and serving as one of partners of the Public Knowledge Project which has developed OJS, Open Conference Systems, with Open Monographs Press coming soon.

Excerpt from the New Open Access Fund announcement:

At its January 2010 meeting, the Senate Library Committee adopted sweeping recommendations that will make SFU one of only three Canadian universities to embrace Open Access (OA) publishing. “We’re going to put our money where our mouth is,” says Bird. OA Journals are scholarly peer-reviewed journals freely available on the web without subscription fees, but they are often supported through Article Processing Charges (APCs) levied to authors. Fees range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per accepted paper. Prominent examples are BioMed Central, Public Library of Science, and Hindawi.

Thanks to Gwen Bird.

This post is part of the Canadian Leadership in the Open Access Movement series.