Transitions

Péter Jacsó, BOSS, E-LIS, and Haworth Press, Online Magazine (Information Today Inc), May/June 2008 (accessible only to subscribers). An OA copy of the part on E-LIS has been posted to the AmSci OA Forum. Excerpt:

The E-LIS database is close to my heart because it delivers for free what the publisher I pan later often does not deliver even for a fee –timely information about research in library and information science and technology. As of early 2008 it had 7,200 papers from about 700 journals.

As an open archive, it covers all fields of LIS from the theoretical to the highly practical, from school libraries to national libraries, from rare books to ebooks, all reflected in the excellent classified subject index. Sure, you can argue if there is a need for separate classes for use studies and for user studies, but the display of the number of postings for each class -to my delight- offers a rather convincing argument without saying a word.

Its coverage is highly international both in terms of the language and country of residence of the authors….

The strongest part of the software is its browsing feature, and E-LIS stands out with the number of indexes that can not only be searched but also browsed by subject, country, journal name, book name, author/editor name, and publication year. The only significant limitation is that there is no option to do exact phrase searching and differentiate between, say, information industry and industry information. For full-text databases this is important….

E-LIS is one of the many repositories that use the free and intuitive EPrint software, which is the brainchild of Stevan Harnad, the key figure of the open access movement. Harnad possesses an admirable combination of mental prowess and hyperactivity as the “archivengalist” of self-archiving who talks the talk and walks the walk tirelessly….

E-LIS is small, but it is growing. Its size doubled in the past 2 years; it could have tripled if we, the authors, would not just feel good after getting our papers published but would go that extra inch and legally deposit them in E-LIS, DLIST, and the slowly emerging institutional repositories, a process that takes just a few minutes.

Open Access News, May 27, 2008

President Bush this week vetoed the recently passed Labor, Health and Human Services (LSSA) domestic spending bill. It contained a mandatory public access policy for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While an override vote has yet to be scheduled, the bill passed in both chambers just shy of the two-thirds majorities needed, making an override highly unlikely.

The veto means publishers opposed to the public access policy are likely to get one more shot to try to remove or amend the policy during negotiations. Although the bill was vetoed for its overall spending, the White House’s “Statement of Administration Policy” (SAP) memo “noted” that any NIH policy “should balance the benefit of public access to taxpayer supported research against the possible impact that grant conditions could have on scientific research publishing, scientific peer review and on the United States’ longstanding leadership in upholding strong standards of protection for intellectual property.” That mention suggests those opposed to the policy could have another, albeit remote, opportunity to revise or slash the policy. Supporters say that heavy bipartisan support for the policy suggest it will survive intact, though advocates for the policy are urging supporters to contact their representatives.

The NIH public access policy, strongly supported by libraries for years, would require researchers to deposit their final articles in the NIH’s PubMed Central database to be made freely available within a year as a condition of grant funding.

Library Journal Academic Newswire, Nov. 15, 2007

Related article:
Bush Vetos Bill that Contains NIH Open Access Mandate - but there is hope it will eventually pass!

President Bush has vetoed the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill, which contained the NIH open access mandate.

Here’s the open access mandate in the bill:

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

However, there is still hope for the Bill to pass. Read Peter Suber’s analysis of the President’s veto:

* First, don’t panic. This has been expected for months and the fight is not over. Here’s a reminder from my November newsletter: “There are two reasons not to despair if President Bush vetoes the LHHS appropriations bill later this month. If Congress overrides the veto, then the OA mandate language will become law. Just like that. If Congress fails to override the veto, and modifies the LHHS appropriation instead, then the OA mandate is likely to survive intact.” (See the rest of the newsletter for details on both possibilities.)
* Also expected: Bush vetoed the bill for spending more than he wants to spend, not for its OA provision.
* Second, it’s time for US citizens to contact their Congressional delegations again. This time around, contact your Representative in the House as well as your two Senators. The message is: vote yes on an override of the President’s veto of the LHHS appropriations bill. (Note that the LHHS appropriations bill contains much more than the provision mandating OA at the NIH.)
* The override votes—one in each chamber—haven’t yet been scheduled. They may come this week or they may be delayed until after Thanksgiving. But they will come and it’s not too early to contact your Congressional delegation. For the contact info for your representatives (phone, email, fax, local offices), see CongressMerge.
* Please spread the word!

From:DigitalKoans, Nov. 13, 2007

News Release from October 24th, when the US Senate Approved the Bill

Full U.S. Senate Approves Bill Containing Support for Access To Taxpayer-Funded Research

Washington, D.C. – October 24, 2007 - The U.S. Senate last night approved the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill (S.1710), including a provision that directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its Public Access Policy by requiring rather than requesting participation by researchers. The bill will now be reconciled with the House Appropriations Bill, which contains a similar provision, in another step toward support for public access to publicly funded research becoming United States law.

“Last night’s Senate action is a milestone victory for public access to taxpayer-funded research,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a founding member of the ATA). “This policy sets the stage for researchers, patients, and the general public to benefit in new and important ways from our collective investment in the critical biomedical research conducted by the NIH.”

Under a mandatory policy, NIH-funded researchers will be required to deposit copies of eligible manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine’s online database, PubMed Central. Articles will be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

The current NIH Public Access Policy, first implemented in 2005, is a voluntary measure and has resulted in a deposit rate of less than 5% by individual investigators. The advance to a mandatory policy is the result of more than two years of monitoring and evaluation by the NIH, Congress, and the community.

“We thank our Senators for taking action on this important issue,” said Pat Furlong, Founding President and CEO of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy. “This level of access to NIH-funded research will impact the disease process in novel ways, improving the ability of scientists to advance therapies and enabling patients and their advocates to participate more effectively. The advance is timely, much-needed, and – we anticipate – an indication of increasingly enhanced access in future.”

“American businesses will benefit tremendously from improved access to NIH research,” said William Kovacs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs. “The Chamber encourages the free and timely dissemination of scientific knowledge produced by the NIH as it will improve both the public and industry’s ability to become better informed on developments that impact them – and on opportunities for innovation.” The Chamber is the world’s largest business federation, representing more than three million businesses of every size, sector, and region.

“We welcome the NIH policy being made mandatory and thank Congress for backing this important step,” said Gary Ward, Treasurer of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). “Free and timely public access to scientific literature is necessary to ensure that new discoveries are made as quickly as feasible. It’s the right thing to do, given that taxpayers fund this research.” The ASCB represents 11,000 members and publishes the highly ranked peer-reviewed journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Joseph added, “On behalf of the taxpayers, patients, researchers, students, libraries, universities, and businesses that pressed this bill forward with their support over the past two years, the ATA thanks Congress for throwing its weight behind the success of taxpayer access to taxpayer-funded research.”

Negotiators from the House and Senate are expected to meet to reconcile their respective bills this fall. The final, consolidated bill will have to pass the House and the Senate before being delivered to the President at the end of the year.

http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/media/release07-1024.html

###

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient, academic, research, and publishing organizations that supports open public access to the results of federally funded research. The Alliance was formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles stemming from taxpayer-funded research become fully accessible and available online at no extra cost to the American public. Details on the ATA may be found at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.

From the March 22 issue of Nature. For the full text, see http://ealerts.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/hc530SpivX0HjB0BOpY0EA

Excerpt:

The US government is considering a massive plan to store almost all scientific data generated by federal agencies in publicly accessible digital repositories. The aim is for the kind of data access and sharing currently enjoyed by genome researchers via GenBank, or astronomers via the National Virtual Observatory, but for the whole of US science.

Scientists would then be able to access data from any federal agency and integrate it into their studies. For example, a researcher browsing an online journal article on the spread of a disease could not only pull up the underlying data, but mesh them with information from databases on agricultural land use, weather and genetic sequences.

Nature has learned that a draft strategic plan will be drawn up by next autumn by a new Interagency Working Group on Digital Data (IWGDD). It represents 22 agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services, and other government branches including the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The group’s first step is to set up a robust public infrastructure so all researchers have a permanent home for their data. One option is to create a national network of online data repositories, funded by the government and staffed by dedicated computing and archiving professionals. It would extend to all communities a model similar to the Arabidopsis Information Resource, in which 20 staff serve 13,000 registered users and 5,000 labs.

Philip M. Davis
Cornell University
<pmd8@cornell.edu> (corresponding author)

Matthew J. L. Connolly
Cornell University
<mjc12@cornell.edu>

D-Lib Magazine March/April 2007 Volume 13 Number 3/4

Abstract

Problem: While there has been considerable attention dedicated to the development and implementation of institutional repositories, there has been little done to evaluate them, especially with regards to faculty participation.

Purpose: This article reports on a three-part evaluative study of institutional repositories. We describe the contents and participation in Cornell’s DSpace and compare these results with seven university DSpace installations. Through in-depth interviews with eleven faculty members in the sciences, social sciences and humanities, we explore their attitudes, motivations, and behaviors for non-participation in institutional repositories.

Results: Cornell’s DSpace is largely underpopulated and underused by its faculty. Many of its collections are empty, and most collections contain few items. Those collections that experience steady growth are collections in which the university has made an administrative investment, such are requiring deposits of theses and dissertations into DSpace. Cornell faculty have little knowledge of and little motivation to use DSpace. Many faculty use alternatives to institutional repositories, such as their personal Web pages and disciplinary repositories, which are perceived to have higher community salience than one’s affiliate institution. Faculty gave many reasons for not using repositories: redundancy with other modes of disseminating information, the learning curve, confusion with copyright, fear of plagiarism and having one’s work scooped, associating one’s work with inconsistent quality, and concerns about whether posting a manuscript constitutes “publishing”.

Conclusion: While some librarians perceive a crisis in scholarly communication as a crisis in access to the literature, Cornell faculty perceive this essentially as a non-issue. Each discipline has a normative culture, largely defined by their reward system and traditions. If the goal of institutional repositories is to capture and preserve the scholarship of one’s faculty, institutional repositories will need to address this cultural diversity.

Read the article at: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march07/davis/03davis.html

Related article:
Harnad: Mandates Would Empower Institutional Repositories

It was probably not much of a surprise to librarians to learn in a recent D-Lib article that Cornell’s DSpace institutional repository (IR) is not filling up very quickly or catching on with faculty; nor was it a surprise that self-archiving and open access champion Stevan Harnad quickly offered a point-by-point response to D-Lib authors Phil Davis and Matthew Connolly. However, the problem of filling IRs with content, Harnad maintains, has a surprisingly easy solution. “The finding is that faculty don’t self-archive spontaneously,” Harnad posited. “The remedy, which [Davis & Connolly] do not mention at all, is to mandate that they self-archive.”

Previous studies show that when mandated to do so, faculty will populate IRs, Harnad argues. “The Swan surveys had already reported that faculty say they will not self-archive on their own,” Harnad told the LJ Academic Newswire, “but 95 percent will self-archive if mandated, over 80 percent of them willingly.” Harnad also cited Arthur Sale’s April 2006 D-Lib article that found that, while “voluntary” policies resulted in repositories collecting less than 12 percent of the available theses, “mandatory policies were well accepted and cause deposit rates to rise towards 100 percent.” There are currently 12 university or departmental mandates adopted worldwide and 11 funder mandates, plus one multi-institutional mandate and six funder mandates proposed, Harnad noted, adding that “the remedy has been tried, a number of times, and it works each time.”

“It sounds simple enough,” responded Davis on Yale University’s Liblicense-L discussion list. “Make one’s faculty do what they don’t see as necessary themselves.” Davis says his and Connolly’s study aimed not to “demonstrate that IRs are a failure,” but by focusing on “non-use” aimed to find out why they are not growing more quickly. “If we are to work at an institution where our researchers have the freedom to choose how they disseminate and archive their work, then it is important to understand the beliefs and motivations behind their behaviors,” Davis continued. “These results may lead to building better services around repositories.”

Library Journal Academic Newswire, March 20, 2007