LibrarianActivist.org

I’m happy to report that my University has passed a Senate resolution (pdf) requiring all faculty members to deposit peer-reviewed journal articles in the University’s repository - Spectrum. Perhaps a little shameless promotion here, but the University Librarian and the Spectrum repository library committee really championned the cause of Open Access to Faculty in the last 2 years, and in the process, increased the visibility and importance of the library at Concordia. Small step for our library, big step for librarianship.

In June, the OECD had a Ministerial Conference on the Future of the Internet Economy. They published a report which is intended to help countries shape policies concerning the Internet economy. The themes that are addressed are the following:

• Making Internet access available to everyone and everywhere.
• Promoting Internet-based innovation, competition and user choice.
• Securing critical information infrastructures and responding to new threats.
• Ensuring the protection of personal information, respect for intellectual property rights, and more generally a trusted Internet-based environment which offers protection to individuals, especially minors and other vulnerable groups.
• Promoting secure and responsible use of the Internet; and,
• Creating an environment that encourages infrastructure investment, higher levels of connectivity and innovative services and applications.

There were some positive policy suggestions that were made, such as:

• Promote a culture of openness and sharing of research data among public research communities.
• Raise awareness of the potential costs and benefits of restrictions and limitations on access to and sharing of research data from public funding.

The OECD Civil Society Forum, comprised of the OECD Civil Society Reference Group and the The Trade Union Advisory Committee, produced a paper (and their own conference) intended to bring to the attention of the OECD Ministers assembled and the OECD member countries the concerns of those not represented at the Ministerial conference.

Their paper highlights the following:

The policy goals for the Future Internet Economy should be considered within the broader framework of protection of human rights, the promotion of democratic institutions, access to information, and the provision of affordable and non-discriminatory access to advanced communication networks and services.

Their recommendations cover

• Freedom of expression
• Protection of Privacy and Transparency
• Consumer Protection
• Promotion of Access to Knowledge
• Internet Governance
• Promotion of Open Standards and Net Neutrality
• Balanced Intellectual Property Policies
• Support for Pluralistic Media

In a positive (perhaps pivotal) development report for Open Access, Harvard University is the first academic institution in the US requiring its scholars to make their research available in the institution’s open access repository. While it includes an opt-out provision, this is no doubt a bold and progressive move by Harvard University in support of access to knowledge.

Below are today’s blog posts, both before and after the vote:

Open Access News
Michael Geist’s blog
Joho the blog
ACRLog

-PC-

Thanks to a colleague who sent me this post from TechCrunch “Google To Become Open Source Science Repository“:

Google is said to be preparing to launch a massive repository of science data at research.google.com. The project, known internally as “Palimpsest” will become a home for terabytes of open-source scientific datasets (…). [T]he storage will be free to all scientists, access to the data will be free for all (…). Two planned datasets are 120 terabytes of data from the Hubble Space Telescope and images from the Archimedes Palimpsest.

Some of the comments on this post are interesting, including some that question just how much information Google knows and owns. How much is too much? In the field of publicly funded research, shouldn’t libraries and government be providing these types of data repositories to make sure that they stay free of advertisements or other private interests? More comments at Digging Digitally.

- DD


“The Canadian police announced that it will stop targeting people who download copyrighted material for personal use. Their priority will be to focus on organized crime and copyright theft that affects the health and safety of consumers instead of the cash flow of large corporations.“

My French isn’t good enough to know if a Le Devoir article linked from this TorrentFreak post is saying that this is a national policy of the GRC (er, RCMP) or one that only applies in Quebec.  But either way, this is a pretty rational stance from the police and it makes me happy to hear that I can download to my heart’s content exercise greater freedom in my choice of online activities. 

On a semi-related note, the Writers Guild of America is on strike with appropriate compensation for sales from electronic media being one of the major issues.  (Writers in Canada dealt with a similar situation a few years back - as new technology that no one foresaw when initial contracts were written came into being, corporations tried to put up works (reviews, essays, articles, etc.) without additional compensation.  Needless to say, writers wanted to be compensated for the reproduction of their work, no matter the form it appeared in.  I can’t remember how this resolved itself - anybody?  Bueller?  Bueller?)