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The Immediate Practical Implication of the Houghton Report: Provide Green Open Access Now :
Among the many important implications of Houghton et al’s (2009) timely and illuminating JISC analysis of the costs and benefits of providing free online access (“Open Access,” OA) to peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific journal articles one stands out as particularly compelling: It would yield a forty-fold benefit/cost ratio if the world’s peer-reviewed research were all self-archived by its authors so as to make it OA. There are many assumptions and estimates underlying Houghton et al’s modelling and analyses, but they are for the most part very reasonable and even conservative. This makes their strongest practical implication particularly striking: The 40-fold benefit/cost ratio of providing Green OA is an order of magnitude greater than all the other potential combinations of alternatives to the status quo analyzed and compared by Houghton et al. This outcome is all the more significant in light of the fact that self-archiving already rests entirely in the hands of the research community (researchers, their institutions and their funders), whereas OA publishing depends on the publishing community. Perhaps most remarkable is the fact that this outcome emerged from studies that approached the problem primarily from the standpoint of the economics of publication rather than the economics of research.
URL : http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18514/

License to Publish : promoting Open Access and authors’ rights in the Nordic social sciences and humanities :
The aim of this project is to promote the principles of Open Access among scholars in the Nordic social sciences and arts and humanities. By providing a legal translation of the Knowledge Exchange “Licence to Publish” document into all five Nordic languages, the project will support the principles of Open Access while providing the necessary legal means for authors to self-archive their publications resulting from e.g. publicly funded research. In addition, this will enable a dialogue among stakeholders on authors’ rights and Open Access principles.
URL : http://www.nordbib.net/Projects/License-to-Publish.aspx

The ebook transition: Collaborations and innovations behind open-access monographs :
Three ambitious initiatives to deliver free online access to scholarly monographs were featured at the next installment of the SPARC-ACRL forum, “The ebook transition: Collaborations and innovations behind open-access monographs.” The market-based business model for scholarly monographs, long under pressure due to decreased library purchasing, must now accommodate a transition to ebooks. Many non-profit publishers, including university presses, are actively exploring new publishing models to support scholarly monographs, including open-access distribution and collaborative initiatives with university libraries. This SPARC-ACRL foruml featured three pioneering initiatives to deliver free online access to scholarly monographs, and highlighted opportunities for libraries to support innovations in this important area.
URL : http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/ala10mw/

Campus-based Open-access Publishing Funds: A Practical Guide to Design and Implementation :
The decision to launch an Open-access Fund is a complex one for many reasons. Establishing a clear understanding of your Fund’s goals, the policies that will govern it, how it will be administered, and what tools can be used to evaluate the Fund’s results all involve careful deliberation and discussion. The relative novelty of the category, combined with demographic, philosophical, and political differences among the institutions that have established Open-access Funds to date combine to create an environment in which there are not yet transferable templates for the simple and straightforward creation of Funds. As a result, it may be challenging for those contemplating the launch of an Open-access Fund to move ahead with absolute confidence and clarity. And yet, despite this uncertainty, more than a dozen institutions (as of this writing) have launched Open-access Funds. This is a concept that clearly intrigues some within the scholarly communication community. As such, it bears further consideration and analysis.
URL : http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/funds/guide.shtml

OAPEN explore l’avenir des monographies en libre accès :
L’étude repose sur une enquête en ligne conduite en mai-juin 2009 auprès de 250 chercheurs en SHS (taux de réponse complète de 88,6%) ainsi que sur des interviews et tables rondes réunissant une quarantaine d’experts. Elle s’est orientée vers 2 axes : l’influence de la numérisation sur l’édition de monographies et les attentes de différents groupes d’usagers concernant un modèle d’édition de monographie en libre accès.
http://www.tge-adonis.fr/?OAPEN-explore-l-avenir-des