Open Access News

• MacKenzie Smith and seven co-authors, DSpace: An Open Source Dynamic Digital Repository
• Steve Mitchell and six co-authors, iVia Open Source Virtual Library System
• Susanne Dobratz and Birgit Matthaei, Open Archives Activities and Experiences in Europe: An Overview by the Open Archives Forum
• Adam Chandler, Digital Library Federation (DLF) Electronic Resource Management Initiative
• Hanno Lecher, Preserving the Chinese Internet: The DACHS Project
• Amanda Hill, Introducing the [JISC] Information Environment Service Registry
• Bernard Reilly, CRL Political Communications Archiving Investigation
• William Kilbride, New Digital Learning Resource - the Coppergate Environmental Archive - Is Launched

Quoting Jim Griffin: "You know, equalizing access to knowledge is one of the hallmarks of a civilized society. Depriving people of access to knowledge based on the size of their parents' wallet is a hallmark of a despotic society." Quoting Siva Vaidhyanathan: "We're allowing the content holders, the content producers, to have a...remarkable amount of control over the manner and amount and re-use of all this material. We don't want to build a cultural environment, in which the media companies have that much control over our daily lives."

Excerpt: "Ginsburg argues that there is no conflict between free speech and copyright terms because the 'copyright scheme ... incorporates its own speech-protective purposes and safeguards.' She begins by noting that 'The Copyright Clause and First Amendment were adopted close in time. This proximity indicates that, in the Framers’ view, copyright’s limited monopolies are compatible with free speech principles.' This argument proves both too much and too little. It proves too much because the First Amendment was ratified at a time when lots of laws against libel, blasphemy, and indecency (judged by 1791 standards) were thought to be consistent with the First Amendment. Indeed, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts only seven years later. If Ginsburg’s argument is correct, most of contemporary First Amendment law is wrong. The argument proves too little because the length of the copyright monopoly at the time of the Founding was much much shorter than it is today, and the modern doctrines that have expanded the scope of copyright protection did not exist in the 1790's. The fact that some degree of copyright monopoly was thought compatible with the First Amendment does not demonstrate that any degree of monopoly, no matter how large or extensive, would have been thought compatible."

• Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/16/03.
• DigitalConsumer.org, 1/15/03.
• Freedom Forum, 1/16/03.
• Dan Gillmor in SilliconValley.com, 1/15/03.
• Los Angeles Times, 1/16/03.
• New York Times, 1/16/03. Another story.
• PC Magazine, 1/15/03.
• Public Knowledge (Gigi Sohn) public statement, 1/15/03.
• Slashdot discussion, 1/15/03.
• Software and Information Industry Association press release, 1/16/03. SIAA has lobbied against government-funded FOS.
• Washington Post, 1/16/03.
• Wired News, 1/16/03.

• David Little, Sharing history of science and medicine gateway metadata using OAI-PMH
• Jeffrey Rydberg-Cox, Cultural Heritage Language Technologies: Building an Infrastructure for Collaborative Digital Libraries in the Humanities
• Steve Richardson and Andy Powell, Exposing information resources for e-learning [harvesting and searching IMS metadata using both the OAI PMH and the Z39.50 Protocol]
• Simon Tanner and Marilyn Deegan, Exploring Charging Models for Digital Cultural Heritage
• William J. Nixon, DAEDALUS: Freeing Scholarly Communication at the University of Glasgow
• Roddy MacLeod, EEVL --Search Me!
• William Nixon and Pauline Simpson, The 2nd Workshop on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI)

If a private survey were done on what librarians think of journal publishers, I predict that the most common response would be something along the lines of ‘they are all money-grabbing exploiters of public intellectual property’. A public survey might garner slightly more polite responses, but you get the point. Many librarians, especially in the academic sector, seem to regard commercial journal publishers as an enemy who should be done away with as quickly as possible. Well, it is quite all right to let off steam when frustrated, and everyone would expect the serials librarian to gripe about journal price increases, but this becomes dangerous when senior managers talk nonsense about commercial publishers in public meetings, and that’s what I’ve been hearing lately.