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FOS Newsletter, 5/30/02
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Peter Suber
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May 30, 2002 10:44 PDT
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Welcome to the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter
May 30, 2002
Ratcheting down the Newsletter
* I apologize for this long digression from FOS news into housekeeping
details. It is unfortunately necessary. If you were a subscriber in
December, then you knew this day was coming. (See FOSN for 12/26/01.) By
chance, this happens to be a slow news week for FOS, so this issue contains
little more than this important housekeeping note.
I've been on sabbatical for the 2001-02 academic year. Although I launched
the FOS Newsletter before my sabbatical began, it flourished during my
sabbatical because I was able to give it my full-time attention. Now my
sabbatical is coming to an end and I must ratchet down the Newsletter in
preparation for the 02-03 year, when I will be teaching full-time.
I am slowing down and slimming down the Newsletter, but not halting
it. First, I hope to continue it during the coming year at a lower level
of activity. I haven't figured out exactly what this will mean and
probably cannot do so in advance. It will depend on how much time I can
find for it. But at least it will mean shorter issues at longer
intervals. It may mean no issues at all for very long intervals. Second,
I hope to revive it after the 02-03 academic year if I can find a way to
give it the time it requires. If I can, then I'll revive it in the form
that seems best at the time, which may differ from the form in which it has
appeared during the past year.
In trying to describe the imminent state of the Newsletter, I've discovered
that English has good words for death and inactivity, and even for reduced
activity in which the previous state was excessive or the reduced state
deficient. But it has no good word for reduced activity without these
pejorative connotations. Anyway, *that* is the intermediate state at which
I'm aiming.
I'll ratchet down the Newsletter in two phases. The first phase starts now
and runs until mid-August. During this time I'll prepare my 02-03 courses,
move back from Maine to Indiana, and otherwise bring my sabbatical to an
end. The second phase starts in mid-August, when I resume full-time teaching.
* To take up some of the functions performed by the Newsletter, I'm
launching a blog to gather and disseminate FOS news. It will be a group
blog with many contributors. If I can recruit contributors from many
nations, many disciplines, and many sectors of the FOS landscape
(universities, libraries, journals, publishers, and foundations), then the
blog will have a good chance of gathering FOS news comprehensively, yet
without greatly burdening any single contributor. I will be one of the
contributors and manage the board of contributors.
The blog will differ from the Newsletter in several ways. It will publish
many voices, not just mine, which is a plus. It will reside on the web
rather than arrive in your email box (although you can sign up for email
notification of updates). Its entries will be short, emphasizing news and
containing less interpretation and analysis than the Newsletter. For these
reasons, it won't replace the Newsletter. And of course, the Newsletter
will still exist.
But at least the blog should take over much of the work of reporting the
news and lift that burden from me. I expect that when I have a nugget of
news, I'll post it to the blog, and when I have a longer interpretive or
analytic piece to write, I'll write it for the Newsletter. During the
02-03 year I won't have nearly the time for either kind of writing that I
had this year, but this is nevertheless how I see the two outlets covering
their common topic.
To seed the blog with news, and show what it will look like, I've put some
of this issue's news items on the blog as well. Have a look (link below).
If the blog isn't as comprehensive as the Newsletter at first, it will be
from lack of contributors. Give it time to grow and consider becoming a
contributor yourself.
The blog will have a searchable archive of past postings and no
advertising. I don't have the archive working yet, but I will soon. (When
it's ready, the archive will be retroactive to the first posting.)
Blogs are wonderful structures adapting to many serious purposes. While
I'm turning to the blog from necessity, I believe it has the potential to
be more useful than the Newsletter at least in its coverage of the news.
* I've talked to enough people about my plans to know that this is a
question on many minds: Could I keep the Newsletter going at the same
level if I had volunteer help? I appreciate the implicit offer of help in
these questions, but unfortunately the answer is "no". Volunteers could
read everything I now read to gather FOS news, and they could probably
apply my own criteria to throw out 90% of it and send me the URLs to the
most relevant 10%. But I'd still have to read the 10% and write the
stories. This would clearly take me less time than I have been spending,
but I'm afraid it wouldn't save enough time. When I teach full-time, I
often have weeks on end when I don't even have time to give proper
attention to my students and colleagues.
If we're talking about others writing their own stories, and not just
feeding me the leads, then that's essentially the blog. If you would have
volunteered to keep the Newsletter going, please consider contributing to
the blog.
Nor could I solve this problem merely by becoming more selective and
limiting coverage to (say) half the topics I've been covering in the
Newsletter. To find the relevant stories, I'd still have to read nearly
everything I read now, but simply filter out more of it.
* My search for a new host for the FOS Newsletter and FOS Discussion Forum
is now much less urgent. I'll continue the search because I'd still like
to give you an ad-free Newsletter; I'm still in contact with six serious
candidates. But the search is going slowly because we're all busy, and now
it will go even more slowly.
* Please don't unsubscribe yourselves on this account. The Newsletter
lives, even if mails less often. The discussion forum is unaffected by
these changes. It will remain open to all your comments on FOS topics,
both from the reduced Newsletter and the new FOS blog.
* During my sabbatical, support from Earlham College and the Open Society
Institute allowed me to work full-time on the Newsletter and the FOS cause
more widely, a unique and precious opportunity. I welcome this chance to
express my thanks and appreciation.
Finally and above all, I thank all 1170 of you for choosing to fill your
mailboxes with an unusually long and idiosyncratic weekly mailing. Your
affirmation of my work and the FOS cause has been deeply gratifying. The
work isn't over, and my voice isn't going away, but my year of freedom is
coming to an end.
FOS News blog
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
How to become a contributor to the blog
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/aboutblog.htm
If you're new to blogs, read Dan Gillmor's thoughts on why they are the
future of journalism, especially on tech subjects.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,718517,00.html
FOS discussion forum. Tell me I'm making a mistake, that I'm overlooking
an obviously superior solution, or that blogs are for teenage
diarists. I'll take it as long as you understand the constraints I'm facing.
http://www.topica.com/lists/fos-forum/read
(Anyone may read; only subscribers may post; subscription is free.)
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Developments
* The Budapest Open Access Initiative has changed the phrase "alternative
journal" to "open access journal" in all its online documents. (Full
disclosure: I am one of the BOAI drafters.) When we launched in February,
the term "open access" was not in common use for this kind of unpriced,
barrier-free online access. No term was in common use for this. We picked
"open access" for the initiative itself, and defined it carefully in the
public statement. But we thought we needed a more self-explanatory if
imprecise term, like "alternative journal", to describe the kind of journal
we hoped to launch and encourage. The recent change of terminology is more
significant than a change of wording. It shows our confidence that the
language of open access is becoming familiar enough to use in short
phrases, where there is no opportunity to include a clarifying
definition. Until now, the FOS movement lacked this kind of familiar
terminology for its central goal. Because words are tools, this is
progress. (PS: These are reasons to change the name of the newsletter and
blog, but "FOS" itself has acquired a useful kind of branding familiarity
of its own.)
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
* At the same meeting that launched Lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons, Tim
O'Reilly announced that all O'Reilly books by consenting authors would be
given only a 14 year copyright before passing into the public
domain. Copyrights lasted for 14 years at the time the U.S. Constitution
was ratified, but now last for the author's life plus 70 years, or 95 years
for works by corporations.
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/1424
* HINARI has added 17 publishers to its consortium of publishers offering
online medical journals and databases to developing countries at tiered
prices, free for the lowest tier. (See FOSN for 2/25/02.)
HINARI
http://www.healthinternetwork.net/
List of the 17 new publishers in the program
http://www.healthinternetwork.org/src/hinari_partners.php?lang=en
* TheScientificWorld has launched what it calls dynamicREVIEWS. These are
peer-reviewed literature reviews linked to online databases and kept
current as new developments require. The dynamicREVIEWS are free to
subscribers to TheScientificWorldJOURNAL, and at a fee to others.
http://www.thescientificworld.com/publications/TSWJ_DomainLanding.asp?uid=&bid=&searchdomaincodes=D400
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New on the net
* There are several interesting discussion threads on the LibLicense list
at the moment, all trying to go beyond criticism of the DMCA to sketches of
a constructive alternative that would respect IP rights as far as they
ought be respected and no further.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0205/threads.html
* The CEDARS Project (CURL Examplars in Digital Archives) has posted five
new working papers to its website, on IPR, Preservation Metadata,
Collection Management, Digi Preservation Strategies, and the Distributed
Digital Archiving Prototype.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/pubconf/pubconf.html
(Thanks to Charles Bailey's Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog.)
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In other publications
* In the May 28 _Information Today_, Barbara Quint reports that OCLC will
become the exclusive distributor of Olive software to libraries. Olive
publishes a suite of tools for digitizing newspapers and creating a
searchable archive of their articles and photographs.
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb020528-1.htm
* In the same issue of _Information Today_, Paula Hane reports that
CrossRef may launch a full-text search engine. The search engine would
index all online texts that use DOIs for reference linking, which would
give it a huge headstart in indexing academic content. (PS: However, most
of this content is DRM-protected and not free. I'm guessing the search
engine will work like Elsevier's Scirus, and allow free searching of unfree
texts, list links or citations among the search results, but only let
authorized users click through.)
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb020528-2.htm
* In the May 28, Jeffrey Young describes how netLibrary has emerged from
bankruptcy as an acquisition of OCLC and how it is using OCLC's connections
and credibility with academic libraries. Rich Rosy, the new CEO, says that
publishers originally forced it to limit ebook circulation to one borrower
at a time, but may now be willing to permit more simultaneous use.
http://chronicle.com/free/2002/05/2002052801t.htm
* On May 28, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) released
the results of its survey of technology use by library and museum
professionals.
http://www.imls.gov/whatsnew/current/052802.htm
* In a pair of UPI stories dated May 27 and 28, Sam Vaknin does a two-part
interview with Michael Hart, the founder of the Gutenberg Project.
Part I, http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=24052002-063619-6754r
Part II, http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=28052002-120328-3546r
* In the April 15 _Library Journal_, Kathleen Born and Lee Van Orsdel give
a very helpful overview of the results of the ALA's 41st Annual Report
Periodical Pricing Survey (see FOSN for 5/23/02). They include tables of
essential data (e.g. average journal price by discipline every year for the
past five years) and succinct summaries of other important findings.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?P2AA325F
* In the March 16 _Telepolis_, Konrad Lischka has a very positive review of
the Budapest Open Access Initiative, "Der Geist, der aus der Flasche kam".
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/copy/12031/1.html
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Following up (new developments in continuing stories)
To see past coverage of these stories in FOSN, use the search engine at the
FOSN archive.
http://www.topica.com/lists/suber-fos/read
* More on the DMCA
The Free Software Foundation has launched the Digital Speech Project to
work toward the amendment or repeal of the sections of the DMCA
incompatible with freedom of digital speech.
http://digitalspeech.org/
(Thanks to C-FIT.)
* More on the Eldred case
On May 23, the ARL put online its amicus brief on behalf of Eldred, or
against copyright extension.
http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/extension.html
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Correction
* In last week's issue I said that the March workshops in Bangalore on
electronic publishing and open archives were organized by the Indian
Institute of Science, when they were only held in its facilities. The
workshops were organized by the Indian Academy of Sciences. I thank Mr. N.
A. Prakash for the correction.
http://www.ias.ac.in/epubworkshop/
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Conferences
If you plan to attend one of the following conferences, please share your
observations with us through our discussion forum. (Conferences marked by
two asterisks are new since the last issue.)
* Society for Scholarly Publishing (AAP)
http://www.sspnet.org/public/articles/index.cfm?Cat=5
Boston, May 29-31
* Fair Use Seminar
http://www.acteva.com//booking.cfm?bevaID=21113
Portland, Oregon, May 30
* Off the Wall and Online: Providing Web Access to Cultural Collections
http://www.nedcc.org/owol/owol1.htm
Lexington, Massachusetts, May 30-31
* Multimedia Content and Tools: Towards Information and Knowledge Systems
http://www.elpub.org/agenda23.htm
London, May 30-31
* Advancing Knowledge: Expanding Horizons for Information Science
http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/cais-acsi2002/
Toronto, May 30 - June 1
* Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2002
http://ce.byu.edu/cw/etd2002/
Provo, Utah, May 30 - June 1
* International Association of Technological University Libraries Annual
Conference: Partnerships, Consortia, and 21st Century Library Science
http://www.iatul.org/
Kansas City, June 2-6
* Digital Behavior: European Forum on Digital Content Creation,
Management, and Distribution
http://www.digi-b.de/
Cologne, June 4-8
* DELOS Workshop on Evaluation of Digital Libraries: Testbeds,
Measurements, and Metrics
http://www.sztaki.hu/conferences/deval/
Budapest, June 6-7
* Social Implicatoins of Information and Communication Technology
http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/herkert/istas02.html
Raleigh, North Carolina, June 6-8
* Electronic Resources and the Social Role of Libraries in the Future
http://www.iliac.org/crimea2002/
Sudak, Ukraine, June 8-16
* First International Semantic Web Conference
http://iswc.semanticweb.org/
Sardinia, June 9-12
* Frontiers of Ownership in the Digital Economy: Information Patents,
Database Protection and the Politics of Knowledge
http://cip.umd.edu/IFRI.htm
Paris, June 10-11
* IASSIST 2002: Accelerating Access, Collaboration, and Dissemination
http://ropercenter.uconn.edu/iassist2002/
University of Connecticut, June 11-15
** Joint Conference of EARMA and EuroScience: Integrating European
Research and Innovation Management
http://www.sztaki.hu/conferences/earma2002/
Budapest, June 14-15
** Open Access to Scholarship: Paths for Libraries [part of the ALA annual
meeting, no separate URL]
Atlanta, June 15, 1:30-3:30,
* Building our Cultural Heritage --Electronically
http://www.lita.org/ac2002/presprog.html
Atlanta, June 17
* The Commons in an Age of Globalisation. Ninth Biennial Conference of the
International Association for the Study of Common Property
http://www.iascp2002.org/
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, June 17-21
* Informing Science and IT Education
http://is2002.com/
Cork, June 19-21
* 8th International Conference of European University Information Systems
http://www.fe.up.pt/eunis2002/
Porto, June 19-22
* Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers: Exploiting the Online Environment for
Maximum Advantage
http://www.ukolug.org.uk/meetings/meetings.htm#conf
Birmingham, June 20-21
* Transforming Serials: The Revolution Continues
http://www.nasig.org/wm/
Williamsburg, Virginia, June 20-23
* Delivering Content to Universities and Colleges: The Challenges of the
New Information Environment. Sponsored by JISC, PA, and ALPSP.
http://www.alpsp.org/PALS02.pdf
London, June 21
** Digitisation, Conservation, and Preservation Workshop
http://www.erpanet.org/php/toledo/
Toledo, Spain, June 23-25
* Choices and Strategies for Preservation of the Collective Memory
http://archives.dobbiaco2002.it/convegno-e.htm
Bolzano, Italy, June 25-29
* CIG Seminar: REVEALed: The Truth Behind the National Database of
Resources in Accessible Formats
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/bib-man/cig-2002.html
London, June 26
* 4th International JISC/CNI Conference
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/jisc-cni-2002/
Edinburgh, June 26-27
* Digitisation Summer School for Cultural Heritage Professionals
http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/DigiSS02/
Glasgow, June 30 - July 5
** Library and Information Services in Astronomy
http://lisa4.cuni.cz/
Prague, July 2-5
** Libraries as Portals to Information. 31st Annual LIBER conference.
http://www.kfunigraz.ac.at/ub/veranstaltungen/liber2002/index.html
Graz, July 2-6
** The Digital Revolution: An Overview of the New Communication Realities
http://www.amsu.edu/courses/media/media42002.htm
Maastricht, July 3-5
** Digital Library IT Opportunities and Challenges in the New Millennium
http://www.nlc.gov.cn/dloc/index_en.htm
Beijing, July 8-12
** DELOS, 2nd International Summer School on Digital Libraries
http://delos-noe.iei.pi.cnr.it/activities/trainingforum/SummerSchool/school2002.html
Pisa, July 8-12
** Digital Library: IT Opportunities and Challenges in the New Millennium
http://www.nlc.gov.cn/dloc/
Beijing, July 9-11
** Networked Virtual Museums and Memory Institutions. Digital Cultural
Heritage IV.
http://www.amsu.edu/courses/media/media12002.htm
Maastricht, July 10-13
** Challenges in Knowledge Representation and Organization for the 21st
Century: Integration of Knowledge Across Boundaries
http://www.dl-forum.de/Veranstaltungen/ISKO2002.html
Granada, July 10-13
** Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2002
http://www.ohsu.edu/jcdl/
Portland, Oregon, July 14-18
** Usability for Digital Libraries (Part of the Joint Conference on Digital
Libraries)
http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/ridl/jcdl02.html
Portland, Oregon, July 18
** Workshop on Developing Digital Libraries Education and Training Programs
(Part of the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries)
http://lair.indiana.edu/jcdlwsdledu.html
Portland, Oregon, July 18
** Workshop on Document Search Interface Design and Intelligent Access in
Large-Scale Collections (Part of the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries)
http://lair.indiana.edu/jcdlwsui.html
Portland, Oregon, July 18
** Conceptions of Library and Information Science: Emerging Frameworks and
Methods
http://colis.ischool.washington.edu/
Seattle, July 21-25
** Eighth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and
Data Mining
http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigkdd/kdd2002/
Edmonton, July 23-26
** International Summer School on the Digital Library 2002: The Management
of Change
http://cwis.kub.nl/~ticer/summer02/course1a/
Tilburg, July 28 - August 1
** Museums, Libraries, and Archives: Summer Institute for Knowledge Sharing
http://skipper.gseis.ucla.edu/orgs/gettysi/html/summer.html
Los Angeles, July 29 - August 1
** Advances in Infrastructure for e-Business, e-Education, e-Science, and
e-Medicine on the Internet
http://www.ssgrr.it/en/ssgrr2002s/index.htm
L'Aquila, Italy, July 29 - August 4
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The Free Online Scholarship Newsletter is supported by a grant from the
Open Society Institute.
http://www.osi.hu/infoprogram/
==========
This is the Free Online Scholarship Newsletter (ISSN 1535-7848).
Please feel free to forward any issue of the newsletter to interested
colleagues. If you are reading a forwarded copy of this issue, you may
subscribe by signing up at the FOS home page.
FOS home page, general information, subscriptions, editorial position
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/index.htm
FOS Newsletter, subscriptions, back issues
http://www.topica.com/lists/suber-fos
FOS News blog
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
FOS Discussion Forum, subscriptions, postings
http://www.topica.com/lists/fos-forum
Guide to the FOS Movement
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/guide.htm
Sources for the FOS Newsletter
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/sources.htm
Peter Suber
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters
Copyright (c) 2002, Peter Suber
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/copyrite.htm
** If you receive this newsletter by email, then please delete the "easy
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