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Open Access Week event at Harvard Law 10/19/09

rihlib — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:47:31 +0000

On Monday, October 19, in recognition of Open Access Week, a Question and Answer forum on Harvard’s involvement in OA was held at Harvard Law School. Stuart Shieber (professor of computer science and Director of Harvard’s Office of Scholarly Communication) and Peter Suber (Berkman fellow and author of “Open Access News”) hosted. Michelle Pearse, HLS Librarian for Scholarly Communication and Open Access Initiatives, moderated.

A question concerned the full impact of OA on library budgets. Prof. Shieber asked rhetorically what is the full cost of not implementing OA. He noted serial cost hyperinflation and dryly noted Stein’s Law (”If something can’t go on forever it will stop” – e.g. serials prices.) “Something … more sustainable” than the current scholarly publishing system is needed, Prof. Shieber continued, to avoid “meltdown.” The Harvard OA mandate aims to “solve the symptom,” that few can access scholarly literature, and enable “broad dissemination.” The cost of OA at Harvard, Prof. Shieber went on, is “relatively low” because the Office of Scholarly Communication pays it. (Prof. Shieber introduced the new program manager for OSC, Sue Kriegsman.) “The cost of Green OA,” where scholars post final version of a work as opposed to the publisher’s version, “is relatively inexpensive.” Fully implementing OA would require a new business model, the professor remarked. He noted that there are more than 4,000 OA journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals, but that relatively few of these are indexed by database vendors such as Thomson/ISI.

David Osterbur from the Countway Library of Medicine asked about situations where publishers charge authors for open access to their articles, but libraries see no reduction in cost for their subscriptions. Prof. Shieber reminded the audience that Harvard Open-Access Publication Equity (HOPE) Fund monies cannot be used to pay for non-OA or hybrid-OA journals (seeOSC’s page on HOPE.) Prof. Suber commented that some publishers such as Oxford University Press reduced subscription prices “in proportion” to use of the “author-pays” model. (Note: evidently fees will change.) He also pointed out that the Wellcome Trust asked for transparency in open access fees.

There was a question about economics and authors’ rights. A discussion followed on the role of scholarly societies. Professor Shieber noted, traditionally, scholarly societies support their activities through publishing fees. Are they getting less money from vendors? Prof. Suber noted that there are societies against OA and at the same time there are ~400 societies with ~450 journals.

In response to a question concerning encouraging scholars to publish in OA journals, Prof. Suber remarked “authors will always publish in the most prestigious journals.” Some of these will be OA or green OA, some no OA.
Prof. Shieber stated that OA initiatives at Harvard “multiply Harvard’s bargaining power.” He cited one partnership with the American Physical Society where Harvard authors (and the university) may republish works from APS publications provided that they link back to the original APS publication and APS retains the copyright. Prof. Suber added that Harvard’s OA policy is “inspiring similar university policies.”

Gosia Stergios, Knowledge and Systems Analyst at Harvard Business School Library, asked how depository outcomes can be measured. Prof. Sheiber replied that downloads are not a big concern at this point, but rather getting as much content and as many faculty participating as possible. He continued to say “Authors often conflate submiiting to the repository to distribution from the repository,” noted that the Office of Scholarly Communication can figure out rights for authors, and encouraged faculty to “just deposit,” and that works will at least be archived if not openly distributed.

Experience with OA issues at Harvard schools other than FAS were discussed. Michelle Pearse talked about her experience working with faculty from HLS and emphasized relationship-building and establishing the library as the go-to place for faculty to negotiate OA questions and issues.

Jody Blackwell of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government told the audience they were putting procedures in place for OA, and that the school publishes an annual faculty publications report. Mark Shelton, collection development librarian at Harvard’s Gutman Library, reported that he tracks faculty publications at HUGSE and there is an average of 75-80 per month. David Osterbur of HMS informed us that the medical school does not yet have an OA policy but they do have a publications repository. With 10,000 faculty at HMS, some 300 papers appear per week. Osterbur noted that the library is helping people meet the NIH depository requirements, and yet he said that only about 45% of HMS affiliates are depositing papers into PubMedCentral. Michelle Pearse added that she tracks faculty publications in HLS, and that many faculty are familiar with OA-type publishing because of the Social Sciences Research Network. She said that it is difficult to attract retrospective content to the repository because usually faculty do not have access to the published version or a preprint.

Gosia Stergios asked the panel about bibliometrics and studies that might show the impact of OA and non-OA work.
Prof. Shieber replied that the data is available for anyone to do these studies, but that it is “hard to believe” that an OA paper would be read less than a non-OA paper.

Stergios commented that interviews with HBS faculty revealed that they don’t care if the published piece of research is OA or not. She attributed this to much research appearing in working papers and other formats prior to publication in a journal. Prof. Shieber noted that these attitudes differ by discipline. Some faculty are Ok with the “submitted article,” such as on a preprint server like ArXiv. He said he wants ” to profit from peer review.”

Stergios asked a question about providing other publication services for faculty. Prof. Suber commented that there are other vehicles for publication besides books and journals. Subsequently, Pearch brought up interdisciplinary research Prof. Shieber mentioned the Harvard Catalyst program which may enable interdisciplinary collaboration. “Faculty might not know each other,” he remarked, that they may share research interests with faculty in other schools and centers. A social networking platform could be created on top of DASH, for instance, “integrating” repository data with “Harvard Catalyst profiles.” The resulting data could be “much broader than PubMed,” in that the “profile system will serve as a data-mining platform.”

A question about metadata and quality assurance issues was posed. Prof. Shieber talked about the DSpace software and that authority control will be part of the next version of DSpace. Pearce asked about controlled vocabulary. Prof. Shieber remarked that DASH is “not using authority control with keywords;” however, he informed us, the content is indexed by Google Scholar, enabling full text searching and retrieval.

Library News & Notes 10/2/09

rihlib — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:54:23 +0000

Rowland Institute at Harvard
Library News & Notes
October 2, 2009

Note: Author Lisa Moricoli-Latham (Harvard ‘86) suggested that this weekly list be organized topically. While I’m partial to the element of surprise, it seemed worth a try. Thanks, Lisa.

Internet Sites of the Week

Books/E-Books
The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far): An Introduction
(Source: About Contemporary Literature)

Compare and Contrast eBook Readers with the e-Book-Reader-Guide
(Source: ResourceShelf)

Emergence of new business models
(Source: Thomas, EUI, Florence)

In-Depth Reviews of Four Scholarly e-Book Services
(Source: ResourceShelf)

My Living Nightmare Of Encouraging Kids To Read Is Over
(Source: Randy Reichardt)

The Next Gen E-Book Reader

Why the Digital Revolution is Missing the Big Picture
(Source: ResourceShelf)

Computers and Internet
Cloud computing and the big rethink: Part 1
See also: Cloud Computing: A collection of working papers
(Source: DocuTicker)
See also: Mist computing, even more carefree than the cloud

(Source: jdysart)

EtherPad: Realtime Collaborative Text Editing
(Source: Lisa Carlucci)

Internet Speeds Are Often Slower Than What Consumers Pay For, FCC Finds

Interview With Stefan Weitz – Putting the Bling Into Bing

New IRS Scam E-mail Could Be Costly

A New Search Engine for Finding Similar Web Sites
See also: Even More Services To Help Discover Similar Web Sites
(Source: Om Malik)

Ten Useful Examples of the Real-Time Web in Action
(Source: Robert Scoble)

Top 10 Underhyped Webapps
(Source: Internet Legal Research Weekly)

Three ways to save some cash and repair or upgrade your iPod

Wanted: Home Computers to Join in Research on Artificial Life
(Source: Science in the News)

Wikipedia alternatives: nine other ‘pedias’
(Source: Matthew Fraser)

Education
Get it out in the open
(Source: libram)

HarvardNews
“All Harvard feeds, all the time”
(Source: Harvard)
See also: Should You Give to Harvard?
(Source: Cassandra Eckhof)
See also: The ‘Veritas’ About Harvard
See also: Undervaluing Undergraduate Education?
(Source: HarvardNews)
See also: Budget Plans Proceed Slowly

Mentoring, Texas-Style

MIT Taking Student Blogs to Nth Degree
(Source: Matthew Fraser)

Google
Judge Adjourns Hearing on Settlement of Google Book Search Dispute
See also: The Google Books Settlement: Who Is Filing and What Are They Saying?
(Source: ALA TechSource)
See also: My book is mine, not Google’s
See also: Save the Google Book Search Deal!

Google Scholar’s Ghost Authors, Lost Authors, and Other Problems
(Source: ResourceShelf)

Google Wave Protocols: Clearing the Confusion
(Source: glambert)

History
African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
(Source: The Scout Report)

Libraries
After Losing Users in Catalogs, Libraries Find Better Search Software
See also: The Library-Catalog Wars: ‘Chronicle’ Readers Weigh In

Bars on books jar Harvard students
(interesting comments section)
(Source: Cassandra Eckhof)

The information society: does it need the information professions?
(Source: Library Web)

Margaret Hodge plans home delivery system to rival Amazon
(Source: Erika McNeil)

New scheme makes ‘every library a local library’
“All libraries in UK are now public”
(Source: Erika McNeil)

What to Withdraw: Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization
(Source: LIBLICENSE-L)

10 Tips to Becoming an Effective Library Patron
(Source: LISNews)

Life, Work, Money, and Family
American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins
(Source: Bibliosoph)

Are you E-gnoring me?

Asking the better question
(Source: The 99 Percent)

The Best Approach for Avoiding Zombies

Boston ranks as 9th-largest economy in U.S.

The Death of Multitasking and Rebirth of Unitasking
(Source: NikKArlil)
See also

Every Person in New York
(Source: Manhattan User’s Guide)

How to Beat Information Overload
(Source: ResourceShelf)

How to Work a Conference
http://bit.ly/ibfjm

Looking beyond loans: Where to find financing now

Number of Top Rated Businesses for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Workers Jumps Despite Tough Economy

Older Workers: Employment and Retirement Trends
(Source: Sloan Work & Family Network)

Recognizing red flags: Signs of workplace stress

Religious life won’t be the same after downturn

Run a Remote Meeting

Thinking Literally
(Source: Newswise)

Understanding the Anxious Mind

The Upside of Recessions
(Source: Science in the News)

Vacation v. Stress
(Source: Nature News)

40 Books About Sexuality That You Have to Read

Scholarly Publishing
Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity: Mistaking intent for action?
(Source: Stevan Harnad)

Data producers deserve citation credit

Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy
(Source: Open Access Tracking Project)

Worldwide Use and Impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Digital Library
(Source: Open Access Tracking Project)

Science
A brief guide to DNA sequencing

A Different Sort of Stimulus Plan at the NSF

Elsevier Unveils New Grant-Finding Service

Researchers unravel brain’s wiring to understand memory

Science Education

Social tagging in the life sciences: characterizing a new metadata resource for bioinformatics

Stay focused
(Source: dullhunk)

Why We Really Want to Go Back to the Moon

Winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel Awards

Social Networks
Available All The Time: Etiquette for the Social Networking Age
(Sources: Shirl Kennedy, Matthew Fraser)

Court order served over Twitter

Facebook: The New Classroom Commons?

Man’s Facebook Status Given Book Deal
(Source: Rebecca Skloot)

My boss fired me, then ‘friended’ me

Social networks, blogs grab bigger share of Web

5 apps get you tweeting from the desktop

20 FaceBooks Tip/tricks
(Source: justsocial)

NEW BOOKS
Received September 26 – Oct. 2, 2009

Molecular Biology of the Cell, 5th ed.
Alberts, Bruce, et al, editors
(Garland Science, 2008)
QH 581.2 .M64 2008
Requested by G. Eastman

The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom
Farmelo, Graham
(Basic Books, 2009)
QC 16 .D57 F37 2009
Requested by G. Eastman

Earlier editions of Library News and Notes are available

Library News & Notes 9/25/09

rihlib — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:10:59 +0000

Rowland Institute at Harvard
Library News & Notes
September 25, 2009

Internet Sites of the Week

A.Word.A.Day
(Source: Library Juice)

Academic and Public Library Collaboration
(Source: Joe Kraus)

Access to Government Information In the United States
(Source: Law Librarian Blog)

The Aggressive Online Search
On job seekers’ knowledge of institutions via the web

American English Dialect Recordings
(Source: ResourceShelf)

Around Academic Libraries, New Cuts and Charges
(Source: Digital Koans)

The Art of Written Persuasion: Part V – Improve Your Vocabulary, Improve Your Success
(Source: beSpacific)

Article-Level Download Metrics—What Are They Good For?

Asking library users to leave if they have H1N1

Augmented Reality Goes 3D, Gets Even More Awesome
(Source: libraryfuture)

The Awesomeness Manifesto
(Source: The 99 Percent)

Because I Am a Girl: The State of the World’s Girls 2009
(Source: Salon)
See also: How We Sabotage Young Girls

Beena Kalisky, L’Oreal USA Fellow, offers tips for mothers in science

Before Choosing an E-Book, Pondering the Format
See also: What Is It About e-Readers?

Best Technology Companies to Work For

Blogging Continues to Help Business
(Source: jdysart)

Bored? Goby helps you find things to do

“Born in the Recession”: A look at business survival stories from past recessions

Boston Book Festival
(Source: Newtonville Books)

Buddhist leader calls video games ‘emotional therapy’

Can Amazon Be the Wal-Mart of the Web?
(Source: Joe Esposito)

Challenges for automatically extracting molecular interactions from full-text articles

Chemical Information in Scirus and BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)

Classic computers on the danger list

A Clip-and-Save Renaissance as More Consumers Use Coupons
(Source: livingwithless)

College Bookstores Hope to Turn Their Web Sites Into E-Book Portals

College for $99 a month
See also: Getting an Education on the Internet
(Source: BoraZ)

Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice

Curiosity, Ingenuity and Styrofoam Science

Data repositories: the next new wave
(Source: Open Access Tracking Project)

DBpedia
“DBpedia is a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the web.”
(Source: Peter Scott’s Library Blog)

Debate Flaring Over Grants for Research

Download Free Reference Guides for Popular Apps

A Dozen Newspaper Survival Tips for Academic Librarians
(Source: Xuemei)

Empirical Study of Data Sharing by Authors Publishing in PLoS Journals
(Source: Open Access News)

Entrepreneurs: Born or made? Ken Morse, Paul Sagan discuss

Facebook doesn’t kill friendships, people do

Fantastic Photos of our Solar System
(Source: Boing Boing)

Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions: FY 2007
(Source: DocuTicker)

Five ways that Apps.gov is a trendsetter

A follow-up to the story on the Cushing Academy Library Abandoning Books
(Source: glambert)

For better social news times, make it the Twitter Times
(Source: BoraZ)

Fotopedia – the world’s first collaborative photo encyclopedia
(Source: beSpacific)