Category Archives: Open Access

Tim Berners-Lee and DataPortability

In a long interview on the state of the semantic web, Tim Berners-Lee (if you don’t recognize the name, you should really read this) briefly discussed DataPortability, the ability to move information freely and easily from one site to another: … Continue reading

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Free-Reading

Free-Reading is “an ‘open-source’ instructional program that helps teachers teach early reading.” Aimed at Kindergarten/First Grade learners, it is a collaborative means to establish an education program that combines the strengths of those who work on the project, and makes … Continue reading

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Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) review

Review : Directory of Open Access Journals (Pdf), by Heather Morrison is a very good introduction to what is becoming a top-tier collection of journals. Although some of the statistics are a bit dated (due to a strength of the … Continue reading

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Institutional Repositories

If you work at an academic library, especially a school which emphasizes publication, then the issue of Institutional Repositories is critical to understand. Even if you don’t fit the above, these repositories, combined with Open Access, will strongly effect librarianship, … Continue reading

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Online Book Search – the Present and the Future

I have encountered a few interesting items relating to online, full-text books during the past few days, and thought they would make a good snapshot of where things stand at this time: Google Book Search : the Good, the Bad … Continue reading

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Calendars for a New Year

Just a couple of sites that feature calendars, since many of us will want/need new ones this week: TimeAndDate.com features resources involving, you guessed it, times and dates. Check out their customized calendar generator at the top of the right … Continue reading

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Code4Lib Journal

Issue 1 of the Code4Lib Journal is now available! The journal is an open-access journal dealing with, well, the more techie aspects of libraries. Even if you aren’t into systems and web coding, you should still look this over. The … Continue reading

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LC and Open Data

Read this post on Thingology, the blog for LibraryThing, then check out the OpenBibliographicData petition on the Open Knowledge Foundation Wiki. If you agree with the petition, I urge you to create an account and add your name to the … Continue reading

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MIT OpenCourseWare goes to High School

MIT has expanded their OpenCourseWare initiative to include science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) for high school students.  Dubbed Highlights for High School (a name that, for me at least, evokes Highlights magazine), their stated purpose is to “inspire the … Continue reading

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Copyright Cost Trend

Three items have caught my eye this past week, and they all point in the same direction, even though they each are about something fairly specific: First was an article about a bill working its way through the Ohio General … Continue reading

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OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is a U.K.-based project that fulfills a great need:  an open, collaborative mapping project.  Ever find an error in MapQuest, Google Maps, or Yahoo Maps?  Can’t do much about it, can you?  OpenStreetMap will be able to be updated … Continue reading

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NIH and Public Access

There is a bill being voted upon by the U.S. Senate on October 15th which will potentially open up a great deal of research being done with National Institute of Health (NIH) funding.  The bill will mandate that the public … Continue reading

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Open Access Calendar

The 2008 Open Access Calendar (Pdf), created by Alma Swan (her blog is here), is available for download.  Although the calendar is not set in the familiar 7×4 (or 5) grid, it looks fantastic.  If there is enough interest, they may do a print run of the … Continue reading

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AltLaw

AltLaw.org, according to the site, “is a joint project of Columbia Law School’s Program on Law and Technology, and the Silicon Flatirons Program at the University of Colorado Law School.”  The site’s purpose:  to allow the user to search case … Continue reading

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The Open Library

The Open Library is a project I have been hoping for years that someone would start – an open source universal book catalog.   Think WorldCat meets Wikipedia meets Amazon and you won’t be far off. So go to their demo … Continue reading

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PLoS ONE goes 2.0

PLoS ONE, an open access publishing site created by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), has instituted a ratings system for articles published through them. By asking readers to rate every article they read for insight, reliability, and style, they … Continue reading

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Free Science Search Tools

A Quick Look of a Few Free Science Search Tools is a post on ResourceShelf (if you only have time to follow two blogs, they should be the other one!) that provides a good starting point for finding free and/or … Continue reading

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Open Access better for Journal Survival?

An interesting, but non-conclusive, study has found that open access journals are ten times less likely to cease publication than their traditional counterparts.  Might this become a reason for journals to adopt open access – namely to broaden readership and … Continue reading

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Open Text Book blog

The Open Text Book blog was started a few days ago by the Open Knowledge Foundation. In their first post, they describe the blog as: a place to list and keep track of news about textbooks that are open in … Continue reading

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New Digitization Project

The Kirtas–BookSurge book digitization program has arrived, digitizing books from four libraries using Kirtas’ automated book scanning equipment and  BookSurge’s  position as an on-demand publishing subsidiary of Amazon.com. Open Access News has a great overview of it, including why it … Continue reading

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