It was twenty years ago today To…

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It was twenty years ago today . . . :

“To mark the 20th anniversary of the commencement of hep-th@xxx.lanl.gov (now arXiv.org), I’ve adapted this article from one that first appeared in Physics World (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/35983) and was later reprinted (Learned Publishing, Vol. 22, No. 2, Apr 2009, p. 95; http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/2009203) (with permission) in Learned Publishing. This version is closer to my original draft, with some updates for this occasion, plus an astounding 25 added footnotes.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.2700

Development of institutional repositories in Chinese Universities and…

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Development of institutional repositories in Chinese Universities and the open access movement in China :

“The number of research articles about Open Access (OA) and Institutional Repository (IR) has grown quickly in recent years, while Chinese universities move slower than their western counterparts. There are only a few experimental institutional repositories (IRs) now, and no explicit campus-wide policies towards open access have been proclaimed. This paper will describe the status of the OA movement in China, and mainly focus on institutional repositories in Chinese Universities. Factors that hinder the development of OA will be discussed; meanwhile we will give some suggestions for constructing IRs in Chinese Universities.”

URL : http://conferences.aepic.it/index.php/elpub/elpub2009/paper/view/97/44

The visibility of Wikipedia in scholarly publications …

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The visibility of Wikipedia in scholarly publications :

“Publications in the Institute of Scientific Information’s (ISI, currently Thomson Reuters) Web of Science (WoS) and Elsevier’s Scopus databases were utilized to collect data about Wikipedia research and citations to Wikipedia. The growth of publications on Wikipedia research, the most active researchers, their associated institutions, academic fields and their geographic distribution are treated in this paper. The impact and influence of Wikipedia were identified, utilizing cited work found in (WoS) and Scopus. Additionally, leading authors, affiliated institutions, countries, academic fields, and publications that frequently cite Wikipedia are identified.”

URL : http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3492/3031

Non–traditional book publishing Non–traditional book publishing prospering…

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Non–traditional book publishing :

“Non–traditional book publishing, prospering on the Internet, now accounts for over eight times the output of traditional publishing. Non–traditional publishing includes books published by their authors and books representing the reuse of content, most of it not covered by copyright. The result is an heterogeneous, hyper–abundant contemporary book environment where the traditional mixes with the non–traditional and finding books that match a reader’s taste is more difficult than previously and may involve new methods of discovery.”

URL : http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3353/3030

Institutional Repositories: Facilitating Structure, Collaborations, Scholarly Communications, and Institutional Visibility

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Digital libraries (in all of their variants) can be great tools to help libraries in providing better and faster services to their users. However it is also the very thing that threatens the survival of the (traditional) libraries.

That is if libraries will not redefine their roles amidst the emergence of these new tools. Digital institutional repositories (IR) – as a species of digital libraries (Lynch, 2003) – is the opportunity that libraries and librarians can seize to redefine their roles and re-assert their influence in their user communities.

Digital libraries are commonly used to manage digital collections that usually generated by vendors (eJournals, eBooks, etc.). Acquisitions, Cataloging, Circulation, and Reference that used to be the domains of librarians are being taken away in digital libraries realm. However there are some functions that vendors and publishers will never take away from libraries, which is the development, management, and use of local content (locally-produced information resources and/or information resources that contain features of local entities).

Every community, especially higher education communities, is rich with local contents with their various formats – often in very unconventional manifestations. Based on experiences gained in developing digital local contents at Desa Infromasi project, it is believed that efforts in identifying, collecting, digitizing, cataloging, and disseminating local content re-affirm the roles of libraries as an entity that establish structure in otherwise chaotic world of myriad information resources.

The efforts will also open up avenues for libraries to assume ‘new’ roles as a facilitator of collaborations among different community of users and scholarly communications across disciplines of knowledge (in the context of higher education institutions).

All these will in the end help promoting institutional visibility. Besides dealing with digitization, libraries will find themselves exploring a whole new world of outreach that will redefine their roles in their institution and society. In short, although the chapter will touch on technical aspects of digital libraries, it will focus on the impacts and influence that libraries can assert to their user communities while they are developing and disseminating digital local content using IR.

Thus digital libraries should not be viewed as an end. Instead they are great tools for libraries to reinvigorate their roles in their user communities. The discussion will use Desa Informasi project as a study case.

The discussion on this chapter is the results of the expansion and ‘conversation’ from several of my previous articles, as follows: 1. “Desa Informasi: Local Content Global Reach” published in the proceeding of the 2005 Annual Seminar of the International Council on Archives – Section on University and Research Institutions Archives (East Lansing, Michigan – U.S.A. – Sep 6-9, 2005) 2. “Desa Informasi: The Role of Digital Libraries in the Preservation and Dissemination of Indigenous Knowledge” published in 2006 by Elsevier in International Information and Library Review, 38(3), pp. 123-131. 3. “Desa Informasi: A Virtual Village of “New” Information Resources and Services” published in 2007 by Emerald in Program: Electronic Library and Information System, 41 (3), pp. 276-290. 4. “Surabaya Memory: Representing Minority Voices in the Digital History of A City.” Published in Archives and Manuscripts – The Journal of the Australian Society of Archivists, 37 (2), pp. 127-137. 5. “Surabaya Memory: Opportunities and Challenges of Open Access e-Heritage Repositories” – in writing process for IFLA Satellite Conference in Chania, Greece – Aug 2010.

URL : http://repository.petra.ac.id/15052/

Social Networking Sites and their role in Scholarly…

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Social Networking Sites and their role in Scholarly Communications :

“The study was originally defined in a specification document produced by the Centre for Research Communications at the University of Nottingham, in which the Centre indicated it wished for a report on social networking sites and their role in scholarly communication […] In particular, the Centre was interested to determine to what extent social networking sites are usurping the role of Open Access repositories and to what extent they are likely to do so in the future. The study therefore naturally needed to consider the relationship between Open Access repositories and social networking sites, both now and in the future. Furthermore, the study needed to examine the behaviour patterns of researchers in using different web locations for research communications and to attempt to predict future trends.”

URL : http://crc.nottingham.ac.uk/projects/rcs/Social_Networking_Report-Duke&Jordan.pdf

Paper Tigers Rethinking the Relationship between Copyright and…

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Paper Tigers: Rethinking the Relationship between Copyright and Scholarly Publishing :

“Discontent is growing in academia over the practices of the proprietary scholarly publishing industry. Scholars and universities criticize the expensive subscription fees, restrictive access policies, and copyright assignment requirements of many journals. These practices seem fundamentally unfair given that the industries’ two main inputs – articles and peer-review – are provided to it free of charge. Furthermore, while many publishers continue to enjoy substantial profit margins, many elite university libraries have been forced to triage their collections, choosing between purchasing monographs or subscribing to journals, or in some cases, doing away with “non-essential” materials altogether. The situation is even more dire for non-elite schools, individual scholars, and members of the general public. There is a growing sense within the scholarly community that change is needed, but change, thus far, has come slowly.

In this Article, I attempt to neutralize the part of the problem that deals with copyright issues by showing that, at least with respect to copyright, scholarly publishers are “paper tigers”: the legal basis of their copyright claims is less secure than is commonly assumed. In so doing, I hope to offer universities an alternative approach to promoting change within scholarly publishing.

In Part I, I explain how, despite customary practice and common (mis)understanding, universities in fact own the copyrights in faculty-created works under the work-for-hire doctrine.13 While a common law “teacher exception” existed at one time to exempt teachers from the operation of the work-for-hire doctrine, Congress’ failure to codify the exception in the 1976 revisions to the Copyright Act extinguished the old common law rule. In Part II, I describe how, in response, universities developed various policy “solutions” in an attempt to circumvent the application of the work-for-hire doctrine. However, these solutions fail to satisfy the requirements set forth in the Copyright Act. I argue that while these policy failures have damaging implications for the proprietary scholarly publishing industry, the potential effect on the public’s interest in open access to scholarly works is quite promising. In Part III, I explore some of the implications of this revised understanding of the law and address concerns expressed by some scholars and commentators that faculty-creators will be harmed by university ownership of copyright. Finally, I conclude with a series of recommendations that universities could undertake to reduce reliance on the proprietary scholarly publishing industry and empower faculty while promoting open access.”

URL : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1893590