Harvard U. Faculty Votes for Open Access
This isn't about government information specifically, but it's big news for proponents of open access everywhere. This story is all over the news this morning - the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Ed., and Inside Higher Ed. among others. Harvard's Arts and Sciences faculty unanimously approved a plan on Tuesday night that will require faculty to post finished academic papers online free, unless scholars specifically decide to opt out of the open-access program. While other institutions have online repositories for their faculty’s work, Harvard is the first university in the United States to mandate open access to its faculty members’ research publications. Stuart M. Shieber, a professor of computer science at Harvard who proposed the new policy, said after the vote that the decision “should be a very powerful message to the academic community that we want and should have more control over how our work is used and disseminated.”
The Harvard Crimson has an editorial about the importance of open access to scholarship in which the impact on libraries and scholarship is discussed. The Crimson also reports that the Harvard University Library will be in charge of implementing a new initiative to publish faculty scholarship. The library will set up an Office for Scholarly Communication to make the open-access repository an instrument for access to research across all disciplines in the spirit of the “one-university” environment that their OPAC now provides for holdings in all the libraries.
Siva on Privacy and ‘the Nonopticon’
Siva Vaidhyanathan has an exceptionally good article about privacy in the current The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Naked in the 'Nonopticon', Surveillance and marketing combine to strip away our privacy By Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Chronicle of Higher Education, "The Chronicle Review" Volume 54, Issue 23, Page B7, (February 15, 2008). [no subscription requred]
"The Nonopticon" is a state of being watched without knowing that you are being watched or at least not knowing the extent to which you are being watched. Reviewing the book Privacy in Peril by sociologist James B. Rule, he says:
Every incentive in a market economy pushes companies to collect more and better data on us. Every incentive in a state bureaucracy encourages extensive surveillance. Only widespread political action can put a stop to it. Small changes, like better privacy policies by companies like Google and Amazon.com, are not going to make much difference in the long run, Rule argues. The challenge is too large and the risks too great.Continue reading
2 Million Pages of legal documents made available free online
Creative Commons has announced that in partnership with Public.Resource.Org and with legal representation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it has purchased and has now made available at no charge the equivalent of nearly two million pages of legal documents. If printed and piled on top of each other, the documents would make a stack of books 348 feet tall. Included are all U.S. Supreme Court decisions and all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 on.
"Though these texts have always technically been in the public domain, the organizations had to purchase the electronic version from a private company that had compiled it. Now available at this link, they have also been converted to XHMTL so that anyone can develop user interfaces and search engines against the information."
Democratic Caucus: America at Risk
There is a new report from the Democratic Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives, entitled "America At Risk: Despite Continued Warnings... America's readiness continues to slide." The 7-page pdf summarizes how the cost of the war in Iraq is straining the budget and affecting the preparedness of the military to protect the country from domestic attack. It includes reports about how budget cutbacks are affecting the National Guards of individual states. hat tip: beSpacific! Continue reading
Anniversary of Open Source and the start of Decade One
Happy Anniversary to Open Source! W00t!! Bruce Perens has just published "State of Open Source Message: A New Decade For Open Source." The concept of open source has also hit the mainstream of the library world (although there have been many long-time proponents in the oss4lib, web4lib, code4lib communities!) with vendors like LibLime on the exhibits floor and talks about Drupal, Koha, Evergreen, VuFind etc and at ALA's 2008 midwinter conference. You owe it to yourselves, your libraries and your communities to find out about open source!
On February 9, 1998, I published the Open Source Definition and the public announcement of the Open Source Initiative that Eric Raymond and I were starting. This was the first time that the general public heard what Open Source was about. Friday, February 8 is the last day of Decade Zero of Open Source. Saturday, February 9 is the anniversary of Open Source and the start of Decade One. It's a computer scientist thing. We always start counting from zero :-) ... ...Most Open Source today is software being produced by its users, for its users ... By participating in Open Source development, users distribute the cost and risk of the development of enabling technology and infrastructure for their businesses. Their profit centers are not tied to software sales, but to some other business. To find them, look to the communities rather than the companies.Continue reading