Archive for the 'Open Access' Category

New 3TU data repository, but is it open?

Published on February 20, 2008 in Open Access. 0 Comments

The libraries of the three cooperating technical universities in the Netherlands have started a data repository for long term archiving of digital data sets. In their combined press release they state:

The world of technical science is to have its own data centre for digital data sets. The 3TU.Datacentre will ensure well-documented storage and long-term access to technical-science study data. This will guarantee the long-term availability of the Netherlands’ entire technical-science heritage.

The 3TU.Datacentre will provide storage of and continuing access to technical-science study data. After all, data sets often remain highly valuable even after a study has been completed. They may be reused in a new study or used to verify the original study. The long-term storage of test data also enables studies to be held over a long period.

A very good initiative, but I am missing out on one point. Is it open? One might expect soo, but the press release does not make a mention of this fact. In my opinion there is no use in having a repository when we don’t have open access to it. But it’s perhaps too obvious to mention.

Let’s hope so.

Searching for Science

Published on January 30, 2008 in Information Retrieval and Open Access. 1 Comment

Since a little while -say a year and a half or so- I teach at regular intervals a course on finding scholarly information with freely available resources on the Web. The course is titled “Searching for Science“. The course material is freely available in one of my Wikis’. The main reason for using a wiki for presenting a course like this, is that linking to examples on the Web works so much more smoothly than using a powerpoint  instead.

With regards to the course today, a small group attended. 4 researchers and 5 (mostly) international students. A nice mix. I really enjoyed it, and I think they did as well. Well at least they gave me a really positive evaluation.
During the course I spend about three quarters of the morning, say a littel over 2 hours, on general search tactics. Search engines and their commands, Web directories and the Deep Web.  During the evaluation I always get the feedback that just some plain Google commands and search tips receive the most Brownie points. What’s always interesting is an exercise where we compare the coverage of scholarly search engines plus Live Academic on retrieving a known article from an OA repository in the Netherlands. I always ask the students to do the search with the full title of an article and repeat the exercise with a sentence from the discussion part of the article. It is always interesting to see the outcome of this exercise. As usual Live Academic failed entirely. Google Scholar did reasonbaly well on both, but today Scirus and Scientific Commons only worked with the title words.  These outcomes can be different again tomorrow. It is always difficult to explain these outcomes.

Meanwhile I find some real gratification in the fact to point my students to some of the OA discussions as well, whilst covering collections of OA journals, Repositories or mentioning Open Course Ware sources.

On most occasions the participants are entirely new to some of de Science 2.0 developments. RSS? never heard off. So I introduce them to Bloglines, Netvibes and Google Reader. Show them something about scholarly blogs, social bookmarking for scientists or Digg.

We do actually have a course on Science 2.0 in the planning for somewhere in April. Needs still a lot of developing though. But it will be interesting.

Three studies on OA repositories

Published on January 17, 2008 in Open Access. 0 Comments

Too much too read to comprehend at once, but tthree reports on the status of the European reposistories have been released. In the (Dutch) press release I noted that they talked about to findability of research reports, and did not mention the availability. It just struck me since I see many repositories in the Netherlands functioning as metadata repositories rather than ftxt repositories. But I have to admit, I should read the reports first.

Weenink, Kasja, Leo Waaijers and Karen van Godtsenhoven (eds.), A DRIVER’s Guide to European Repositories: Five studies of important Digital Repository related issues and good Practices (AUP: Amsterdam, 2007) ISBN 9789053564110, 200p.

This Driver’s guide is a practical guide to be used by repository managers and institutions for setting up and develop a repository and extra services. In this guide five essential aspects for realizing and amplifying repositories are described: the business plan, intellectual property rights, storing research data, curation of data and the long-time conservation of data. The authors have chosen for workable solutions that are applicable on local and national level.

Maurits van der Graaf en Kwame van Eijndhoven, The European Repository Landscape : Inventory study into present type and level of OAI compliant Digital Repository activities in the EU (Amsterdam University Press, 2008) ISBN 9789053564103, 144p.

What is the current state of digital repositories for research output in the European Union? What should be the next steps to stimulate an infrastructure for digital repositories at a European level? To address these key questions, an inventory study into the current state of digital repositories for research output in the European Union was carried out as part of the DRIVER Project. The study produces a complete inventory of the state of digital repositories in the 27 countries of the European Union as per 2007 and provides a basis to contemplate the next steps in driving forward an interoperable infrastructure at a European level

Muriel Foulonneau and Francis André, Investigative study of standards for Digital repositories and related services (Amsterdam University Press, 2008) ISBN 9789053564127. 112p.

This study is meant for institutional repository managers, service providers, repository software developers and generally, all players taking an active part in the creation of the digital repository infrastructure for e-research and e-learning. It reviews the current standards, protocols and applications in the domain of digital repositories. Special attention is being paid to the interoperability of repositories to enhance the exchange of data in repositories. It aims to stimulate discussion about these topics and supports initiatives for the integration of and, where needed, development of new standards. The authors also take a look at the nearby future: which steps have to be taken now in order to comply with future demands?

What amazes me most is that I can only find a press release in Dutch. The Driver website hasn’t got the news yet….
Well, Peter it is up to you…..

First issue of a new library journal

Published on December 19, 2007 in Open Access. 3 Comments

The first issue of the Code4Lib Journal is online. It is an very interesting Open Acces Journal. I first noted it at Ken Varnum’s RSS4Lib blog. Ken is on the editorial board of this journal. Don’t think it is a journal for techies only, even I as a none programmer found plenty interesting stuff to read in the inaugural issue, like beyond OPAC 2.0, on the future of the library catalog system. It is exactly one of those articles that fully addresses the focal point of their mission statement: “the intersection of libraries, technology, and the future.” If they adhere to that statement, I am sold.
The articles in this first issue of Code4Lib Journal (C4LJ) are:

NTvG not so open access

Published on November 25, 2007 in Open Access. 1 Comment

The Dutch medical journal Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, indexed in PubMed, celebrates this year its 150th anniversary this year. Quite an old lady. All its archives have been scanned and made available for subscribers for about two years now. The NTvG is the weekly professional journal for general practitioners in the Netherlands. About 80% of Dutch GPs have their personal subscription on this journal.

Yesterday is was anounced in de Volkskrant, that NTvG will open up its archives to the public. De Volkskrant went on to state that NTvG is following the example of the leading international medical journals with opening up of its archives. Well maybe. There is a catch though. The archive is only open for articles older than five years. With a moving wall of five years before opening it’s archives, one can’t really speak of an OA journal.

On the website of NTvG no mention of this news whatsoever. So far only this announcement in the well respected newspaper de Volkskrant. This story will be continued I believe.

Leo Waaijers in Ariadne Magazine

Published on November 9, 2007 in Open Access. 0 Comments

Just announced in my Dutch blog that Leo Waaijers will give a presentation at the opening symposium of our brand new library. Then I received the TOC of this months Ariadne magazine in which Leo wrote the article “The DARE Chronicle: Open Access to Research Results and Teaching Material in the Netherlands. The article is an good recap of what is happening in the Netherlands related to OA developments, an good read for anybody interested in OA.

Other articles on OA related articles included in this issue of Ariadne are:
DRIVER: Building the Network for Accessing Digital Repositories across Europe
Further Experiences in Collecting Born Digital Archives at the Wellcome Library
Googlepository and the University Library