Excerpts from the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter
March 25, 2002
my.OAI, a new search engine for OAI-compliant archives, promises automatic
text summaries in a future release. See the my.OAI story below, under
Developments.
http://www.myoai.com/
Developments
* François Schiettecatte has created my.OAI, a new search engine for
OAI-compliant archives. It doesn't cover all OAI archives, but will cover
any combination of seven major ones. It includes a flexible web form to
limit a search to given metadata fields, dates, or archives. Registered
users can set preferences, store documents in customized folders, and store
any search for reuse. A future version will offer automatic text summaries
and links to similar documents. The search engine is online and working,
though not all the functions are fully implemented yet. Schiettecatte
welcomes comments and suggestions from users as he finishes coding the
feature set.
http://www.myoai.com/
* The British Library announces that over 100 publishers have agreed to
deposit their electronic publications in its repository to promote their
long-term preservation. The archive now contains over 800 ebooks and 850
ejournals. Currently publisher deposits are voluntary, but the UK
Department of Culture, Media and Sport is using the experience to refine
legislation to make future deposits compulsory. Rules about who can access
the archive and on what terms are still being worked out.
http://www.bl.uk/cgi-bin/press.cgi?story=1229
* The International Consortium for the Advancement of Academic Publishing
(ICAAP) has announced its prices for designing, managing, preparing and
hosting electronic journals. After the initial setup fee, the price is
$400/year, and $30/article for markup (Canadian dollars). Compare these
prices, for example, to services charging $500/article. ICAAP believes its
prices are low enough to create an alternative to expensive commercial
presses and to allow editors to make their journals free or affordable for
readers. ICAAP also announces that it now offers similar services for
print journals.
http://www.icaap.org/icaapcosts.html
(Full disclosure: I'm on the ICAAP board, but ICAAP is a non-profit
organization and I have no financial interest in it.)
[S.H.: What about the cost of implementing peer review?]
* Next month _Science_ magazine plans to publish the genome sequence for
rice, as deciphered by Syngenta. But the journal will not require that the
underlying data be publicly accessible. This has triggered a letter of
protest from 20 prominent genome scientists, including two Nobel
laureates. Their letter argues that "accepted norms of the field" require
data to be accessible in public domain databases. The concern is that the
genetic data on rice, the most important food plant in the developing
world, will be privately owned. Quoting Alex Wijeratna for
ActionAid: "The corporations are leading a charge to privatise the staple
crops. There could be serious implications for poor farmers in developing
countries."
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992061
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1879000/1879346.stm
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=275756
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z4A31239
* OCLC has released SiteSearch, open source software to manage distributed
library content on the web. The Java code is now available for
downloading, for non-commercial users only.
http://www.sitesearch.oclc.org/projects/ssbasecode/
* The UK's ubiquitous Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has
launched an online magazine, _JISC inform_, to help us keep track of its
many FOS projects and other initiatives. The new magazine replaces _JISC
News_. The first issue contains stories on RDN, digital preservation, and
the research grid. (Separate stories do not have separate URLs.)
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pub02/inform1.pdf
* In the March 21 _SearchDay_, Chris Sherman evaluates FindArticles, a free
database of full-text articles from journals and magazines. What sets it
apart is that it offers free online access to articles that may not be
available from the home sites of the original journals and
magazines. (PS: This is a great advantage, but it's not clear how
FindArticles does it. If it has licensed the content for free distribution
from the original periodical, then why doesn't the original periodical
offer free access to the same content?)
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/02/sd0321-findarticles.html
* In the March 21 _Free Pint_, Paul Harwood asks whether scholarly
publishing is undergoing evolution or revolution. He outlines the
interests of publishers, subscription agents, and librarians, and describes
a good number of the recent FOS initiatives. Although Harwood is a
Regional Director for Swets Blackwell, he admits that he finds Stevan
Harnad's FOS arguments persuasive. In the end he concludes that deep
change is occurring, and that "a revolution cannot be discounted".
http://www.freepint.com/issues/210302.htm#feature
(Thanks to Gary Price's VASND.)
* In the March issue of _Syllabus_, I have an article on Noesis, software
for searching and organizing online content that I am developing with a
partner. The last section of the article shows how the software will serve
the FOS movement.
http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=6133
* The March issue of _D-Lib Magazine_ is now online. The theme for this
issue is Digital Technologies and Indigenous Communities. In addition to
the theme articles, FOSN readers will be interested in the following short
notes.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march02/03contents.html
Y. Kathy Kwan, LinkOut --Explore beyond PubMed and Entrez
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march02/03inbrief.html#KWAN
Kat Hagedorn, Launch of OAIster Project
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march02/03inbrief.html#HAGEDORN
Christine Lafon, Physicists Gain Online Research Tool That Will Save
Thousands of Hours Yearly [namely, the NASA Astrophysics Data System]
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march02/03inbrief.html#LAFON
To see past coverage of these stories in FOSN, use the search engine at the
FOSN archive.
http://www.topica.com/lists/suber-fos/read
* The full text of the anthology of essays, _The Transition from
Paper: Where Are We Going and How Will We Get There?_ (ed. R. Stephen
Berry and Ann Simon Moffat) is online without charge. Many of the papers
have a strong FOS connection. See especially those by Andrew Odlyzko,
Steven Bachrach, Paul Ginsparg, Ann Okerson, Martin Blume, and R. Stephen
Berry.
http://www.amacad.org/publications/trans.htm
(Thanks to LibLicense.)
Conferences
If you plan to attend one of the following conferences, please share your
observations with us through our discussion forum.
* Association of Information and Dissemination Centers (ASDIC) Spring 2002
Meeting
http://www.asidic.org/s02program.html
St. Augustine, Florida, March 24-26
* OCLC Institute. Steering by Standards. (A series of satellite
videoconferences.)
http://www.oclc.org/institute/events/sbs.htm
Cyberspace. OAI, March 26. OAIS, April 19. Metadata standards in the
future, May 29.
* WebSearch University
http://www.websearchu.com/
San Francisco, March 25-26; Stamford CT, April 30 - May 1; Washington DC,
September 23-24; Chicago, Octeober 22-23; Dallas, November 19-20.
* European Colloquium on Information Retrieval Research
http://www.cs.strath.ac.uk/ECIR02/
Glasgow, March 25-27
* e-Content: Discovering and Delivering Value
http://www.informationhighways.net/conf/cindex.html
Toronto, March 25-27
* New Developments in Digital Libraries
http://www.iceis.org/workshops/nddl/nddl-cfp.htm
Ciudad Real, Spain, April 2-3
* The New Information Order and the Future of the Archive
http://www.ed.ac.uk/iash/archive.conference.html
Edinburgh, March 20-23
* Copyright Management in Higher Education: Ownership, Access and Control
http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/copy_manage2002/
Adelphi, Maryland, April 4-5
* Global Knowledge Partnership Annual Meeting
http://makeashorterlink.com/?F21C3456
Addis Ababa, April 4-5
* What Scholars Need to Know to Publish Today: Digital Writing and Access
for Readers
http://library.albany.edu/symposium/
Albany, New York, April 8
* International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing
http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~srimani/itcc2002/cfp.html
Las Vegas, April 8-10
* NetLab and Friends: 10 Years of Digital Library Development
http://www.lub.lu.se/netlab/conf/
Lund, April 10-12
* E-Content 2002 (on ebooks)
http://litc.sbu.ac.uk/econtent/index.html
London, April 11
* Censorship and Free Access to Information in Libraries and on the Internet
http://www.db.dk/kon/temadag/Censurogytringsfrihed_eng.htm
Copenhagen, April 11
* International Learned Journals Seminar: We Can't Go On Like This: The
Future of Journals
http://www.alpsp.org/s120402.htm
London, April 12
* SIAM International Conference on Data Mining
http://www.siam.org/meetings/sdm02/
Arlington, Virginia, April 11-13
* Creating access to information: EBLIDA workshop on getting a better deal
from your information licences
http://www.eblida.org/conferences/licensing/licensing.htm
The Hague, April 12
* Licensing Electronic Resources to Libraries
http://www.arl.org/scomm/licensing/pworkshop.html
Philadelphia, April 15
* United Kingdom Serials Group Annual Conference and Exhibition
http://www.uksg.org/conference.htm
University of Warwick, April 15- 17
* Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy
http://www.cfp2002.org/
San Francisco, April 16-19
* EDUCAUSE Networking 2002
http://www.educause.edu/netatedu/events/net2002/
Washington, D.C., April 17-18
* Museums and the Web 2002
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2002/
Boston, April 17-20
* Legal Guidelines for Use of Intellectual Property in Higher Education
http://www.oneonta.edu/conference/copyright/
Oneonta, NY, April 19
* Information, Knowledges and Society: Challenges of A New Era
http://www.congreso-info.cu/venglish.htm
Havana, April 22-26
* DAI Institute on The State of Digital Preservation: An International
Perspective
http://www.clir.org/agenda-digpres.html
Washington, D.C., April 24-25
* CLIR Sponsors' Symposium: New Challenges, New Solutions: Libraries for
the Future
http://www.clir.org/agenda_sponsorsymp.html
Washington, D.C., April 26
* The European Library: The Gate to Europe's Knowledge: Milestone Conference
http://www.europeanlibrary.org/
Frankfurt am Main, April 29-30
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The Free Online Scholarship Newsletter is supported by a grant from the
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Peter Suber
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Copyright (c) 2002, Peter Suber
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