Papers from the American Society for Information Science & Technology's (ASIST) 2005 Annual Meeting, Sparking Synergies: Bringing Research and Practice Together, are now online and freely available in E-LIS....The benefits of open access to these conference papers are obvious. Everyone with access to the internet has ready access to the conference proceedings, not just those who could attend the conference or purchase the proceedings. This helps us all to bridge the gap between theory and practice. This is one of the most exciting transformative possibilities of the combination of the electronic medium and the world wide web, that is, the ability to develop evidence-based practice in areas like medicine and librarianship, most effective through the optimum dissemination of research, which is open access. The ready findability of the conference papers enhances discovery of these high-quality resources by people interested in the paper topics. No wonder, then, that the US E-LIS Editorial Team received a substantial and enthusiastic response to the question about archiving of these papers; in record time and without reminders, about half the authors responded with an enthusiastic yes, please make my work available in E-LIS, with only one author opting out. One might speculate that this initiative will enhance the impact not only of the individual authors, but also that of the sponsoring body, ASIST, as well. After all, people are more likely to find the high-quality work that is presented at the ASIST annual meetings....Open access archives facilitate access - but also preservation....A full back-up of E-LIS is made weekly, and an incremental back-up is made daily.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/12/2006 10:06:00 AM.
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.
