Latest in the scholarly publishing debate

The Science & Technology Committee of Parliament (House of Commons, UK) took testimony and issued a major report with detailed recommendations in July, Scientific Publications: Free for All?. The committee basically recommended that the UK legislate to support open access and this raised questions and counter-arguments, particularly from major scientific publishers.

The committee's 14th report dated Nov. 1, 2004 includes the administration's response Appendix 1 along with responses from several other important players.

More details are in STLQ and Open Access News.

Deadline to comment on the NIH public/open access proposal is TOMORROW

November 16 is the deadline for submitting comments on the NIH public/open access proposal.

Submitting comments by email
PublicAccess@nih.gov

Submitting comments by web form
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/public_access/add.htm


Here are some links to helpful analytic material from George Porter at the California Institute of Technology.

Association of American Universities

Association of American Medical Colleges

Council of the National Academy of Sciences

Joint letter from AAP/PSP, American Medical Publishers Association and the DC Principles Coalition

Comments on the Creative Commons in the Chronicle

Alternative License for the Arts Fails to Catch On in Academe
By ANDREA L. FOSTER, Chronicle.com, October 1, 2004
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i06/06a03401.htm
(Registration Required)
Aurarians only - get the name & password through Auraria Library

"Creative commons, an effort to get artists and scholars to give up some
control of their works so that they can be more freely distributed, is
struggling to gain a foothold in academe."

"Academic programs that use Creative Commons licenses include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare and Rice University's Connexions, online repositories of college-course material, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society, and the Berklee College of Music's Berklee Shares, which offers free music lessons. The Public Library of Science, which publishes free journals online, also licenses material under Creative Commons."