A late April conference at prestigious Yale University Law School gave new focus and momentum to a growing movement aimed at protecting the public’s right to access knowledge. The effort seeks to slow years of momentum in the direction of ever-stronger and wider-reaching intellectual property rights seen as moving ever-greater amounts of information and knowledge into private hands [PS: It includes OA but is much wider than OA.] The 21-23 April Access to Knowledge (A2K) Conference organised by the Yale Information Society Project brought together many of the most-recognised thinkers and practitioners across a variety of fields dependent upon access to information and know-how.
The packed panels - there were more than 100 panelists over three days - worked through every imaginable aspect of how having access can improve or save lives and societies. The range showed how the issue has become infused into local indigenous communities, education, science, food and agriculture, health, media, personal privacy, technology and creativity. It tackled legal issues, morals and ethics, economics, the need for better measurement, and numerous development concerns....A Wiki about access to knowledge was created at the event, which includes blogging from the sessions.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/05/2006 08:01:00 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.
