[GOAL] Re: Status of OUP/ESA copyrights on PDF files of journal articles that were never copyrighted
Dear Tom This might have something to do with business plan, even though it is at the very bottom of the article landing page Pay Per Article<http://aesa.oxfordjournals.org/highwire/payment/ppv/71823> - You may access this article (from the computer you are currently using) for 1 day for US$39.00 Griault deceased May 2, 1941, 75 years ago… Donat Donat Agosti Plazi Web: http://Plazi.org Switzerland From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Walker,Thomas J Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 10:11 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal@eprints.org> Subject: [GOAL] Status of OUP/ESA copyrights on PDF files of journal articles that were never copyrighted I am trying to understand the business plan that Oxford University Press (OUP) has for the subscription journals of the Entomological Society of America (ESA). In doing so, I found notices of copyright on abstracts of ESA articles from 1908 forward. For example, see this abstract of an article published in 1908 in ESA’s Annals: http://aesa.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/3/179. You will see under the title of the article a DOI followed by “First published online: 1 September 1908”, a claim that is difficult to square with the history of the internet. · Beneath the abstract is this claim to copyright: “© 1908 Entomological Society of America.” Question: Do those who make PDFs of journal articles that were never copyrighted have a valid claim to a copyright of their PDF of the article? Tom Thomas J. Walker Department of Entomology & Nematology PO Box 110620 (or Natural Area Drive) University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-0620 E-mail: t...@ufl.edu<mailto:t...@ufl.edu> FAX: (352)392-0190 Web: http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Is access to information a human right?
Dear Peter and Chris The right of access to scientific information also played a role in the decision of the Swiss Federal Court in the Case ETHZ vs Elsevier, Springer and Thieme in regards of the document delivery service at the ETHZ. (https://plus.google.com/115599971535973973155/posts/dFYqhJW9z4k ) In their overall argument (http://relevancy.bger.ch/php/aza/http/index.php?lang=detype=show_documenthighlight_docid=aza://28-11-2014-4A_295-2014print=yes ), the Federal Court made also the argument that the “Wissenschaftsfreiheit” (the guarantee of an untouchable creative center of scientific discovery and teaching as well as maintenance of the intellectual und methodological independence of the research”, among other rights has to be weighed of interests against the rights of the right holder, and concluded, that in the case of copying entire articles from a journal that this is lawful. Other rights considered right of communication, right of opinion and information, right of basic education, right of art and right of economy. Another part of the argument, unrelated to the rights above, but probably decisive in this case, has been that an article is a part of journal which is what the subscriber (the library) pays for. Paragraph 3.6.2 …. einen Ausgleich zwischen verschiedenen grundrechtlich geschützten Interessen herzustellen, so insbesondere zwischen der Eigentumsgarantie (Art. 26 Abs. 1 BV) einerseits und den Kommunikationsgrundrechten (Kultusfreiheit [Art. 15 BV], Meinungs- und Informationsfreiheit [Art. 16 BV], Medienfreiheit [Art. 17 BV], Anspruch auf Grundschulunterricht [Art. 19 BV], Wissenschaftsfreiheit [Art. 20 BV], Kunstfreiheit [Art. 21 BV] und Wirtschaftsfreiheit [Art. 27 BV]) andererseits ( GASSER, a.a.O., N. 4 Vorbem. zu Art. 19 ff. URG, N. 31 zu Art. 19 URG). Unfortunately, the case is in German but would make a very good read for scientists interested in copyright to understand better, how the court argues such cases – as opposed to the discussions we have in our scientific communities. May be one day I or somebody else will translate it. Cheers Donat From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Peter Murray-Rust Sent: Monday, January 5, 2015 9:27 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Is access to information a human right? Completely support you Chris. I blogged about this 3-4 years back but got little take-up http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2011/09/30/access-to-scientific-publications-should-be-a-fundamental-right/ reported later... http://access.okfn.org/2012/03/20/scientific-social-networks-are-the-future-of-science/ We need to keep arguing this! On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 7:20 PM, Chris Zielinski ziggytheb...@gmail.commailto:ziggytheb...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for this comment, Jenny, and for sharing the link to Farida Shaheed's Report on The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications. She makes some interesting points regarding the right of access to scientific (and cultural) knowledge, and notes that governments are increasingly insisting on open access to the results of government-funded research. While this is indeed a chink in the armor, it is a long way short of comprehensive open access to all information essential to human development. Altogether, the UDHR/Covenant do not offer the interpretation that access to information is a human right.You would in fact have to conclude the reverse - if authors/creators have a human right to their output, which allows them to decide all significant further uses (publishing, reading, etc) of their work then surely nobody else does.Note that I am arguing this strictly from a rights perspective, not applied law. In the next few weeks I hope to develop a few more building blocks for my argument in the blog, before trying to pull them all together. Best, Chris On 5 January 2015 at 15:00, Jenny Molloy jenny.mol...@okfn.orgmailto:jenny.mol...@okfn.org wrote: Thanks Chris, this is very interesting and I look forward to reading your future blogs on reconciling access to knowledge with authors rights. I've found the following article to be a good exploration of discussions on the normative content of the 'right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress' (part of Article 27 of UDHR): Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Farida Shaheed The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session20/A-HRC-20-26_en.pdf Jenny On 31 December 2014 at 22:02, Chris Zielinski ziggytheb...@gmail.commailto:ziggytheb...@gmail.com wrote: I’ve just posted a blog that might be of interest to members of this list. The blog seeks to answer the question, “Is access to information a human right?” by carrying out a short, non-specialist analysis of Articles of the Universal Declaration
[GOAL] copyright, scientific names compilations of scientific names
Dear colleagues Here is the link to our latest contribution to the ongoing discussion on copyright in the realm of taxonomy: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/7/79/abstract The question we are interested in in this series of studies is where the legal boundaries of copyright are, and where they have to be moved in favor of open access. It has to be seen in the context of beyond green road open access but in the realm of semantic enhanced publishing and linked open data. Though taxonomy within biology has not yet neither full green nor gold open access, we have tracks that are very advanced regarding open access publishing (eg Pensoft journals) and that allow to look into what we consider the real import steps in publishing and scientific communitcation, open access semantic enhanced linked publishing. Abstract Background As biological disciplines extend into the 'big data' world, they will need a names-based infrastructure to index and interconnect distributed data. The infrastructure must have access to all names of all organisms if it is to manage all information. Those who compile lists of species hold different views as to the intellectual property rights that apply to the lists. This creates uncertainty that impedes the development of a much-needed infrastructure for sharing biological data in the digital world. Findings: The laws in the United States of America and European Union are consistent with the position that scientific names of organisms and their compilation in checklists, classifications or taxonomic revisions are not subject to copyright. Compilations of names, such as classifications or checklists, are not creative in the sense of copyright law. Many content providers desire credit for their efforts. Conclusions A 'blue list' identifies elements of checklists, classifications and monographs to which intellectual property rights do not apply. To promote sharing, authors of taxonomic content, compilers, intermediaries, and aggregators should receive citable recognition for their contributions, with the greatest recognition being given to the originating authors. Mechanisms for achieving this are discussed. Best regards Donat ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: new platinum open access
Ultimately you might be right. But I see OA as a process to get open access to our research results. It is even not clear what OA means in itself, nor whether the way to it has to follow a certain path, beyond producing results or content that is literally free, unrestricted and open access to the content of the article (in the sense and standards of scientific publishing). What I hope though is that the business models will be sustainable enough, and a particular kind of OA is not done with a malicious intention (like Ford who the LA tramways system only to shut it down to sell their cars instead). What's more important is the commitment of the MfN to continue publish, and publish in OA. That means there will be enough financial resources to maintain their inhouse journals, send a signal to other similar institutions to follow suit (which they want to do not because of the journals but because the results are instantaneously distributed to Encyclopedia of Life, Species-ID, Plazi, GBIF, institutions that multiply the distribution effects). Another aspect is the commitment of Pensoft to innovate, to develop new ways of publishing scientific results, like the most recent creation of the Biodiversity Data Journal. http://biodiversitydatajournal.com/articles.php?id=995 Even though the profit margin of Pensoft is not public, the prices to publish are and they are well below what Elsevier and others ask for a technically inferior product. Despite not being Cell or another high profile journal, 43,000 visits for an article about spiders shows a potential impact (http://tinyurl.com/pnozq7p ) , though not resulting necessarily in high impact factors. Taxonomy is notorious for having low impact factors, but very long shelf life of their publications - where else are publications from 1758 regularly cited?! I also think that publishing in taxonomy is different than the SMT publishers that make the big buck. Traditionally, we have an estimated 2000 journals where the discovery of new species is recorded, some of them are very small covering one taxon, are published in one of the big and not so big natural history museums, not even primarily to sell but to exchange with other museums. For all of us it is only an advantage if we have a publisher that is willing to tackle this market. It is the only way we finally might be able what is running and flying around out there. Interestingly enough it is Pensoft that pioneered together with Plazi (my institution) and NLM the development of TaxPub JATS, the first domain specific flavor of NLM's JATS used to archive biomedical journals at PubMed Central - taxonomists have been the first for once in the life sciences and medical world. We have discussions with Pensoft about open source etc., but what for us counts more is the trust in Pensoft to work for the distribution of scientific results to the best of the scientist, and actually do deliver: the results are their increasing number of journals, a robust publishing environment, helping solving longstanding issues in our domain, like identifiers for scientific names, treatments etc, and actually deploy them in their journals. This is the only way to get over what seemed until very recently un insurmountable barrier. Sorry for providing neither a black and white, no or yes answer All the best Donat -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] Im Auftrag von Richard Poynder Gesendet: Friday, December 20, 2013 3:35 PM An: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Betreff: [GOAL] Re: new platinum open access Thanks for posting this Donat, I am curious as to how much the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin is paying Pensoft to publish these journals, and I would think others on the list might be too. Unfortunately, when I asked Pensoft for the information I was told that it was confidential. Since the data would help other journals/organisations looking to pursue the so-called platinum road it seems a shame. Would you agree? Richard Poynder -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Donat Agosti Sent: 19 December 2013 09:35 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] new platinum open access Below a success story for our (taxonomists) goal to not only provide open access but also create semantically enhanced journals based on Taxpub JATS. In this case two old prestigious journals are now published this way. Donat http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/pp-tot121813.php 2 of the oldest German journals in Zoology go for 'platinum' open access Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Zoosystematics and Evolution join the family of Pensoft journals Enough has been written and said about platinum open access as a step beyond the green and gold open access models. However, comparatively
[GOAL] Re: new platinum open access
Dear Stefan and Richard The MfN case is a journal that is not really subsidized but originally published also for exchange reasons between libraries, that is it has been used to get publications from other libraries. Thus this did not involve costs for purchasing subscriptions but could this sources cold be invested in the publication. I am not sure then, whether this is considered subsidized in your terminology. The other difference made is, that the journal is not a dumb pdf but a taxpub JATS semantically enhanced publication that allows much better access to content. The goal thus is not just to have a publication out but rather a piece of a bigger puzzle. If I am right there has been a study on the costs of publishing produced in the EU-EDIT program. I will try to find a copy - but this will be in the New Year. All the best Donat Von: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] Im Auftrag von Richard Poynder Gesendet: Friday, December 20, 2013 8:07 PM An: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Betreff: [GOAL] Re: new platinum open access These are all good points Stevan. Personally I don't mind what names people use. My point was that if the costs associated with subsidising OA journals were more transparent we might see more subscription journals flipped to OA. It might also lead to a more competitive environment for publishing services. Price transparency usually does. Richard Poynder From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: 20 December 2013 16:11 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: new platinum open access The Green/Gold Distinction.The definition of Green and Gold OA is that Green OA is provided by the author and Gold OA is provided by the journal. This makes no reference to journal cost-recovery model. Although most of the top Gold OA journals charge APCs and are not subscription based, the majority of Gold OA journals do not charge APCs (as Peter Suber and others frequently point out). These Gold OA journals may cover their costs in one of several ways: (i) Gold OA journals may simply be subscription journals that make their online version OA (ii) Gold OA journals may be subsidized journals (iii) Gold OA journals may be volunteer journals where all parties contribute their resources and services gratis (iv) Gold OA journals may be hybrid subscription/Gold journals that continue to charge subscriptions for non-OA articles but offer the Gold option for an APC by the individual OA article. All of these are Gold OA (or hybrid) journals. It would perhaps be feasible to estimate the costs of each kind. But I think it would be a big mistake, and a source of great confusion, if one of these kinds (say, ii, or iii) were dubbed Platinum. That would either mean that it was both Gold and Platinum, or it would restrict the meaning of Gold to (i) and (iv), which would redefine terms in wide use for almost a decade now in terms of publication economics rather than in terms of the way they provide OA, as they had been. (And in that case we would need many more colours, one for each of (i) - (iv) and any other future cost-recovery model someone proposes (advertising?) -- and then perhaps also different colors for Green (institutional repository deposit, central deposit, home-page deposit, immediate deposit, delayed deposit, OAI-compliant, author-deposited, librarian-deposited, provost-deposited, 3rd-party-deposited, crowd-sourced, e.g. via Mendeley, which some have proposed calling this Titanium OA). I don't think this particoloured nomenclature would serve any purpose other than confusion. Green and Gold designate the means by which the OA is provided -- by the author or by the journal. The journal's cost-recovery model is another matter, and should not be colour-coded lest it obscure this fundamental distinction. Ditto for the deposit's locus and manner. Excerpted from: On Diamond OA, Platinum OA, Titanium OA, and Overlay-Journal OA, Againhttp://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/993-.htm Stevan Harnad On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 10:06 AM, Donat Agosti ago...@amnh.orgmailto:ago...@amnh.org wrote: Ultimately you might be right. But I see OA as a process to get open access to our research results. It is even not clear what OA means in itself, nor whether the way to it has to follow a certain path, beyond producing results or content that is literally free, unrestricted and open access to the content of the article (in the sense and standards of scientific publishing). What I hope though is that the business models will be sustainable enough, and a particular kind of OA is not done with a malicious intention (like Ford who the LA tramways system only to shut it down to sell their cars instead). What's more important is the commitment of the MfN to continue publish, and publish in OA. That means
[GOAL] new platinum open access
Below a success story for our (taxonomists) goal to not only provide open access but also create semantically enhanced journals based on Taxpub JATS. In this case two old prestigious journals are now published this way. Donat http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/pp-tot121813.php 2 of the oldest German journals in Zoology go for 'platinum' open access Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Zoosystematics and Evolution join the family of Pensoft journals Enough has been written and said about platinum open access as a step beyond the green and gold open access models. However, comparatively little has been seen of its practical implementation. On 1 January 2014, two of the oldest German journals in Zoology - Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Zoosystematics and Evolution - make a step right into the future by joining the journal publishing platform of Pensoft Publishers and adopting platinum open access For Pensoft, platinum open access means not just that the articles and all associated materials are free to download and that there are no author-side fees but even more so that novel approaches are used in the dissemination and reuse of published content. This publishing model includes: Free to read, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute Easy to discover and harvest by both humans and computers Content automatically harvested by aggregators Data and narrative integrated to the widest extent possible Community peer-review and rapid publication Easy and efficient communication with authors and reviewers No author-side fees Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Zoosystematics and Evolution are titles of the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, founded in 1857 as Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift, is one of the oldest entomological journals worldwide, and the oldest one in Germany. It publishes original research papers in English on the systematics, taxonomy, phylogeny, comparative morphology, and biogeography of insects. Having long been indexed by Thomson Reuters's Web of Science, now the journal will go on the route of innovation with Pensoft. Zoosystematics and Evolution, formerly Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Zoologische Reihe - is an international, peer-reviewed life science journal devoted to whole-organism biology, that also has a rich history behind itself (established in 1898). It publishes original research and review articles in the field of zoosystematics, evolution, morphology, development and biogeography at all taxonomic levels. ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] open access and SCOAP3 in NZZ
Here is a little contribution to the OA debate and SCOAP3 in the Swiss NZZ Forscher, Bibliotheken und Verleger einigen sich auf Open-Access-Initiative Open Access, also der freie Zugang zu wissenschaftlicher Literatur, wird als eine unumgängliche Basis für eine moderne Wissensgesellschaft angesehen. Denn die Möglichkeit, die riesige Anzahl wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten maschinell auszuwerten, kann unter Umständen zu Erkenntnissen führen, die ein einzelner Forscher manuell nicht liefern kann. Für die Wissenschaftsverlage bedeutet Open Access allerdings eine grosse Herausforderung, da ihr traditionelles Geschäftsmodell infrage gestellt wird. Deshalb hat es in der Vergangenheit immer wieder Reibereien zwischen den Verlagen und der Open-Access-Bewegung gegeben. Dass es auch zu einvernehmlichen Lösungen kommen kann, zeigt nun das vom europäischen Laboratorium für Teilchenphysik (Cern) angeführte Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3). More: http://www.nzz.ch/wissenschaft/uebersicht/forscher-bibliotheken-und-verleger-einigen-sich-auf-open-access-initiative-1.18206376 All the best Donat ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Launch of the open access, semantically enhanced open access journal
The Biodiversity Data Journal is the newest addition to the Pensoft Ltd published open access and Taxpub/JATS NLM based journals. The http://biodiversitydatajournal.com/articles.php?id=995 http://biodiversitydatajournal.com/articles.php?id=995 Editorial, associated http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/pp-tbd091613.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/pp-tbd091613.php press release and the http://biodiversitydatajournal.com/browse_articles http://biodiversitydatajournal.com/browse_articles twenty-four published papers give the readers an idea about the novel approaches implemented by BDJ and what the journal looks like in general. Best regards Donat Agosti ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
copyright and open access in biodiversity publishing
This following link http://antbase.org/ants/publications/varia/Agosti2005a.pdf Provides access to a lecture I recently presented at the Biodiversity: Science and Governance (http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/biodiv2005paris/en/index.htm) meeting in Paris, January 26 to 28, 2005, covering the issue of copyright and access to systematics information (systematic = science of the discovery of new species and their phylogenetic relationship) The image (Fig.1) shows dramatically what 'non-open access' in our biodiversity-science does. It is right now a trend, that more and more of the systematics journals are not open access, but rather the opposite, and thus have an adverse effect especially on the conservation of nature. Donat Dr. Donat Agosti Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Institution Email: ago...@amnh.org Web: http://antbase.org CV: http://antbase.org/agosticv_2003.html Dalmaziquai 45 3005 Bern Switzerland +41-31-351 7152 agosti_paris_biodiv.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document
Re: copyright and open access in biodiversity publishing
that one is generating funds for the institution (sort of ridiculous argument talking about monographs and science salary involved); loyality to his publisher with whom one has long ties; signing of copyright agreement without thinking of its consequences. (4) As to trying to persuade database providers to give-away their products: I am sceptical. Where producing it has required an investment, and one that was made for the sake of eventual royalty revenue, they will have no more interest in giving away their product than any other producer of a product or service for sale. It is only the original data-provider (if he seeks no revenue) that can change this, by providing a free supplementary version. We are tilting at windmills if we hitch the fate of OA to the magnanimity of either publishers or database providers. Our trump is the fact that we researchers are the original data-providers, and we have no revenue interests. - I agree - that's why we want to be the dataprovider AND have the best possible data base, so we control both and can keep our parts in open access (ie antbase.org). It is interesting to see, what is going to happen when Harvard University Press is eventually to release a new database of the ants of the world, which covers exactly what we have in our database (which in itself is one which includes next to 19,000 names of ants another 150,000 names of bees, wasps etc., and finally is being part of a global database of species of the world (e.g. Global Biodiversity Information Facility). Donat Agosti
DECLARATION of the International Conference Information as Libraries
Another little step ahead... International conference: Information as Public Domain: Access through Libraries http://www.nlr.ru:8101/tus/271004/index_e.html http://www.nlr.ru:8101/tus/271004/index.html International conference Information as Public Domain: Access through Libraries Russian version Program DECLARATION of the International Conference Information as Public Domain: Access through Libraries On 27-29 October 2004 St. Petersburg hosted the International Conference Information as Public Domain: Access through Libraries, which was attended by over 120 representatives of public authorities, academic research organizations, libraries and other institutions from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Great Britain, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzia, Moldova, Russia, USA, Tajikistan and the Ukraine. Having examined an extensive range of agenda items, the participants of the Conference hereby confirm their view that enabling access to public domain information produced by public authorities should become fundamental to the national information policies of all nations striving for democracy and freedom of human development. Public authorities, as well as libraries, archives and various information services providers should assume a primary responsibility for the expansion of openness and management of information as public domain. The mainstream principle of information management should be as follows: information produced by public authorities should be deemed publicly available, and any exceptions to this rule officially banning the said access should be justified, minimized and supported by the power of law. The national information policy and its legislative and regulatory support should be based on the presumption of openness of government information. The participants of the Conference take note that any national information policy should reside on the determination to develop a knowledge society and a civil society. Libraries of today constitute an indispensable institution of civil society and an effective tool for building it. Support of the development of library services should be elaborated in national information policies. The participants of the Conference take note of the need for meaningful efforts to implement the key documents passed at the World Summit on Information Society, i.e. the Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action (2003), as well as the Policy guidelines for the development and promotion of government public domain information (UNESCO, 2004). 28 October, 2004 Tavrichesky Palace, Saint Petersburg Adopted by Plenary Session Home page © National Library of Russia, 2000-2004 i.kachkovsk...@nlr.ru = Vorwärts! Zapopan Martín Muela Meza PhD student Information Studies Department of Information Studies University of Sheffield, United Kingdom http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/research/phd.html http://www.geocities.com/zapopanmuela/index.html __ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com Dr. Donat Agosti Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Institution Email: ago...@amnh.org Web: http://antbase.org CV: http://research.amnh.org/entomology/social_insects/agosticv_2003.html Dalmaziquai 45 3005 Bern Switzerland +41-31-351 7152
Re: Evolving Publisher Copyright Policies On Self-Archiving
This seems to be an article of interest to the open access debate? Paul A. David (2004) Can 'open science' be protected from the evolving regime of IPR protections? Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 160 (1, 2004): 9-34 http://siepr.stanford.edu/papers/pdf/02-42.pdf ABSTRACT: Increasing access charges and transactions costs arising from monopoly rights in data and information adversely affect the conduct of science, especially exploratory research programs. The latter are critical for the sustained growth of knowledge-driven economies, and are most efficiently pursued in the open science mode. In some fields, informal cooperative norms for timely sharing of access to raw data-steams and documented database resources are being undermined by legal institutional innovations that accommodate the further privatizing of the public domain in information. A variety of corrective measures are needed to restore proper balance to the IPR regime. Dr. Donat Agosti Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Institution Email: ago...@amnh.org Web: http://antbase.org CV: http://research.amnh.org/entomology/social_insects/agosticv_2003.html Dalmaziquai 45 3005 Bern Switzerland +41-31-351 7152
Re: Evolving Publisher Copyright Policies On Self-Archiving
P.S. Even for those who are Creative Commons (CC) License advocates first, and OA advocates only second, your own objectives -- eminently worthwhile and highly desirable and beneficial as they are -- would be far better served if you advised those whose first concern is OA for the 2.5 million annual articles in the world's 24,000 peer-reviewed journals to self-archive their own articles now. The very best way to prepare the road for CC in this special domain (refereed journal articles) is to first attain 100% OA. It will all be downhill for CC from there. But not from here -- and especially if premature (and unnecessary) calls for CC (in this special domain, unlike music, software, film and trade publication) help to delay attaining immediate 100% OA! I am not a believer in serial arrangements, but rather parallel. I am for multitasking in this issue. We need asap the largest possible amount of open access publications to show its impact on our research, and to produce a 'fait accompli'. We need to work out initiatives such as the various Commons (e.g. the Creative Commons will be launched on November 20 at the occasion of the World Conservation Congress in Bangkok: See eg http://research.amnh.org/entomology/social_insects/ants/publications/conservation_commons.pdf which hopefully will be another push for OA from yet again a different direction). I also believe everybody should do what she can do best - that is the best use of our sparse resources, since we all want to have open access installed. Donat
Re: A Search Engine for Searching Across Distributed Eprint Archives
It is merely distraction and dreaming to worry about search tools when the OA content is not yet there for them to search! +++ for our little brave world of ant systematics (covering ca 11,700 species) we have all we can online accessible, that is 70,000 pages in pdf, both single and bound pdf accomplished with support of the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History as main supporters. The pages cover ca 3,500 publications dating from 1758 (see for example for Camponotus herculeanus in taxon search at antbase.org) to today. They are linked into our catalogue of ants (and another ca 130,000 names of bees, wasps, etc., so that from every citation the original publication can be read. Together with UMass Boston, the American Museum of Natural History, Ohio State University and University of Magdeburg and supported by NSF/DFG, we are developing a standard to convert those legacy publication and mark their content up using XML schema or similar tools. The problem, besides technical issues, is, as you make it clear, to assure that we do have access to recent publications. For example, for 2003, 423 (!) new ant species have been described, of which only the original description of 8 (!) species are open access. Interestingly, this includes also a publication by Harvard University Press by E.O.Wilson, the single largest producer of new species description of 2003. A university publisher which I would assume should be at the forefront of open access to serve the scientific community. This somewhat pioneer project seems to have inspired other research groups to begin build up an archive of publications covering their taxa (groups of plants and ants). Independently of that, research institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History are beginning to open up their archives by transferring the legacy publications into digital publications, and hopefully entirely open access. It is still a far way to go to get all the publications of the ca 1,500,000 species, each with an (ant) average of 6 pages, thus 9,000,000 pages. But I believe, we will only get the money to transfer this huge amount of legacy data, if we can provide the best possible access to its body - thus excuse of thinking ahead. Donat Agosti
Re: A Search Engine for Searching Across Distributed Eprint Archives
Dear Stevan Attached a little report which appeared in today Science section of the Neue Zuercher Zeitung: http://www.nzz.ch/2004/10/20/ft/page-article9XKLV.html about http://www.oai.unizh.ch/symposium/program.html I am sorry, I couldn't make it. There was a second meeting in Bern on Biodiversity Issues, which has in fact a lot to do with the open access initiative. This meeting though was organized by life science, and not medical science, two branches of the Swiss Academy of Sciences Something, which bothers me and doesn't show up in most of the discussion of open access, is the construction of search tools across digital publications (and potentially millions of pages of legacy information). In the end, this will be the real issue, not just reading another publication face to face. What do you think about that? It seems, that the big publishing houses are already thinking about that, and that they developed such facilities. This of course is one of the most important tools, for data mining, extraction, or just finding the right piece of information. It also means, that we look beyond selfarchived pdf documents to searchable documents with some mark up of their logic content included. Any ideas? All the best, and thanks for all your efforts re open access Donat Dr. Donat Agosti Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Institution Email: ago...@amnh.org Web: http://anbase.org CV: http://research.amnh.org/entomology/social_insects/agosticv_2003.html Dalmaziquai 45 3005 Bern Switzerland +41-31-351 7152
Re: Open letter to Congress from 25 Nobel Laureates
Why is this initiative just one for the biomedical community? It seems strange to me, that it doesn't cover science in general. For example, one of the major problems in Conservation Biology is in fact access to the widely scattered publications, and increasingly, a digital divide is being widening between North and South (where most of the biodiversity is), as well as between those being part of a wealthy university system and those not. Donat Agosti [Moderator's Note: A simple way to extend the scope of the US/NIH initiative (to mandate the open-access self-archiving of all NIH-funded biomedical research) so as to cover all of scientific and scholarly research is to drop the stipulation that the self-archiving must be done in PubMed Central (PMC): Just mandate that it should be self-archived in an OAI-compliant archive, without stipulating PMC, just as the UK's proposed self-archiving mandate has done. If NIH authors self-archive in their own institutional OAI archives, the practise will propagate naturally across all the disciplines at their institutions. -- Stevan Harnad] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903.htm http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-064.html
