Tag Archive for 'Open Access'

ELAG2008 : Can the library be a publisher ?

Published on April 15, 2008 in Conferences. 2 Comments

A presentation by Library Waaijers on open access at the university. His presentation has been used in the Dutch congress to celebrate the opening of the library in February. His presentation is therefore already available.

Leo takes the research article as an example, and explains the publishing and peer review process. In which authors normally pay with handing over their copyrights. In a newer model authors pay in cash for the review process. In brief these are the two publishing models.

The quality construct of academic journals is grounded in the impact factors. And Impact Factors are debated to say the least. On the latter he quotes Michael Mabe from Elsevier:

“Extending the use of the journal impact factor from the journal to the authors of papers in the journal is highly suspect; ……[impact factors] are not a direct measure of quality and must be used with considerable care.”

He shows us the Sherpa/Romeo categorization of copyright contracts. Reasearhcers want their articles to be published in high impact journals, that have high circulation and easily reused and presented on websites and cv’s. Preservation also matter to the researchers.

According to Leo it is time to act. The publishers won’t act. Authors, research funders and policy makers are acting al have acted. In the powerpoint of Leo he mentions (and links) many of these statements.

Leo then draws a call for proposal for Wageningen University as follows.

“Annually, WUR produces N articles in (sub) discipline Y. A consortium comprising WUR, the Ministry of Agriculture, FAO, NWO wants to tender the reviewing process for these articles under the following conditions:

  1. The reviewing process must be independent, rigorous and swift.
  2. The reviewing may be anonymous, named or open (to be decided on).
  3. All N articles will pass the reviewing process.
  4. As a result of the reviewing the articles are marked 1 to 5.
  5. Articles with marks 3 to 5 are accepted for posting in the Wageningen institutional repository and for immediate open publishing in Wageningen Yield 2.0 (in WUR house style).
  6. Subsequently authors may publish their articles in any journal.
  7. In their appraisal procedures for staff and research projects members of the consortium will weigh articles with marks 3, 4 and 5 as if they were published in journals with impact factors 3, 8 and 15 respectively (figures are nominal and subject to disciplinary calibration).
  8. The national library of the Netherlands will take care of the long term curation of the accepted articles

Proposals for a three year contract should be sent to ……The allocation of the contract will be based on the best price-performance ratio.”

Really interesting, but wonder when the time is there we actually get this idea sold.

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.

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: