We [at the Open Knowledge Foundation] have been doing more work on the Open Shakespeare project with the result that a new version (v0.4) is ready for release....For those unfamiliar with the project, Open Shakespeare has two basic aims.
First, to provide a simple but compelling open knowledge exemplar — and to show some of the complexities in producing open knowledge. For example, simply getting a good open set of Shakespeare’s work involves some degree of effort: Project Gutenberg has 4 versions of most of Shakespeare, two of those four versions are copyrighted (and all Gutenberg texts have Gutenberg headers and footers that need to be removed). Next those out-of-copyright texts you can find are not always ’socially open’, that is easy to access and download (particularly in an automatable manner). Finally, the texts that are available aren’t necessarily technologically open so work has to be done to put them into open, machine processable formats (plain text/xml etc).
The second basic aim of Open Shakespeare is to illustrate real-world knowledge packaging — all the Open Shakespeare material is available in a single (python) bundle that can be automatically downloaded and ‘installed’. Furthermore, every effort is made to make the material as reusable as possible and there’s a full programmatic API together with ancillary tools: our main aim is not to provide another Shakespeare website but to provide the tools and material to allow others to build their own applications and websites. While we have created a simple site using the material we’ve gathered its purpose will be to showcase what can be done and to encourage others to use our work in ways we haven’t even considered....
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.
