OA Debates Among OA Advocates
While not necessarily "governmental" -- a recent article in the PLoS Biology by Gunther Eysenbach is generating a lot of blogging regarding green and gold Open Access: two parallel "roads" towards OA: OA journals and self-archiving. Interesting enough, the article that identifies these roads is by Stevan Harnad, Tim Brody, et al "The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access" is in a non-OA journal: Serials Review Volume 30, Issue 4, 2004, pp 310-314. Which is owned by Elsevier which has recently sent a letter offering authors the ability to make their articles open access: Elsevier offers OA hybrid journals via Peter Suber's Open Access News. However, if you want to follow some of the discussions of the PLoS article and other OA issues,there are some starting points: Caveat Lector's Open Access Stevan Harnad's Open Access Archivangelism and of course, in the same issue of PLoS Biology issue Open Access Increases Citation Rate Continue reading
NLM Link Out
The National Library of Medicine works with medical libraries via LinkOut: a service of Entrez [i.e., PubMed] that allows direct links from PubMed and other Entrez databases to a wide range of information and services. "LinkOut aims to facilitate access to relevant online resources in order to extend, clarify, and supplement information found in the Entrez databases".
Pt. 4: Nonlawyer’s journey through Title 44: Classified list of Government publications for selection by depositories.
As I proceed through selected parts of Title 44, I want to keep reminding our audience that I am not a lawyer and that I welcome comments from all, especially those with more experience in interpreting Title 44 than I do. Continuing our examination of the legislation behind the Federal Depository Library Program, we come to sec 1904, which is prompts the Government Printing Office (GPO) to issue its List of Classes and provide us with annual item selection updates (emphasis mine):
TITLE 44--PUBLIC PRINTING AND DOCUMENTS CHAPTER 19--DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM Sec. 1904. Classified list of Government publications for selection by depositories The Superintendent of Documents shall currently issue a classified list of Government publications in suitable form, containing annotations of contents and listed by item identification numbers to facilitate the selection of only those publications needed by depository libraries. The selected publications shall be distributed to depository libraries in accordance with regulations of the Superintendent of Documents, as long as they fulfill the conditions provided by law. (Pub. L. 90-620, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1284.) Historical and Revision Notes Based on 44 U.S. Code, 1964, ed. Sec. 83 (R.S. Sec. 502; Jan. 12, 1895, ch. 23, Secs. 53, 61, 28 Stat. 608, 610; Aug. 9, 1962, Pub. L. 87-579, Sec. 3, 76 Stat. 353).In my admittedly layman's view of the law, I think this is one of this sections that depository librarians and concern citizens can use to insist on a plan for digital deposit of electronic government publications to local library servers. Notice that the law does not specify a format, but does specify that selected publications shall be distributed to depository libraries. As it is written, it does not say it is ok for publications simply to be available to libraries and other parties. Obviously, the framers of this law did not know about the Internet. But if Congress wanted any other mechanism than distribution of publications in whatever format, they could have amended this portion of the law. Next time we will examine 44 USC 1905, Distribution to depositories; designation of additional libraries; justification; authorization for certain designations. and see another example of where distribution, not mere access, is mandated. Until then, be well! Continue reading
The One Opposite of Open Access is NO Access: TRI
On October 4, 2005, the Environment Protection Agency notified Congress of its intent to reduce the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirement for covered facilities from annual to biannually; and a rulemaking proposal to raise the reporting thresholds from 500 to 5000 pounds. See: Toxics Release Inventory 2006 Burden Reduction | OMB Watch | ALA GODORT’s Resolution on Protecting the Toxics Release Inventory Program Congress is scheduled to vote this week on an amendment that would prevent the EPA from rolling-back reporting requirements for toxic pollution under the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Know as the Pallone-Solis Toxic Right-To-Know Amendment to the Interior Appropriations Bill, a variety of organizations are urging action for supporting the amendment: ALA Legislative Action Center and OMB Watch Continue reading
Warning of privatization of information from Humanities Scholars
The issue of privatization of information when it is digitized "struck the strongest chord" at a convocation on the Humanities held by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Association of American Universities.
- Speakers at Convocation on Humanities Warn About Privatization of Materials, by Richard Byrne, Chronicle of Higher Education Monday, May 15, 2006 (subscription required, but available for a short time without subscription here)
Ideas that struck the strongest chord at the convocation included a call from some speakers to resist the increasing privatization of the raw material of scholarship by corporations as such material is digitized. Changes in copyright law to extend the length of time that material remains in copyright and efforts by companies such as Google to digitize books into privately controlled databases have increasingly placed the source material that scholars in the humanities use in private control for longer periods of time.This is also an issue for government publications. We have seen that Google has treated post 1926 public domain government publications in the same way it treats copyrighted works -- making only snippets available. Continue reading