David Kirkpatrick reports in today's New York Times that book publishers are distressed that public libraries provide free online access to books. Quoting Miriam Nisbet, legislative counsel for the American Library Association: "What we are really excited about is the potential of the technology to allow greater dissemination of information because getting information into the hands of everybody we can is what we are all about. What we are concerned about is the dark side, which is trying to lock everything up."
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
