U.S. President-elect Barack Obama today named Elena Kagan as his nominee for Solicitor General. See the announcement.
Kagan currently serves as dean of Harvard Law School. She presided over the adoption of the school's OA mandate last year, the first such policy for a law school. See e.g. her positive comments on the policy here.
Kagan also presided over the successful efforts to lure Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig back to Harvard. See e.g. her warm comments on Lessig and CC from this December 2008 event.
Comment. The Solicitor General represents the federal government in the Supreme Court, files amicus briefs in cases at the appellate level, and decides whether to appeal cases found adversely to the government. Having a friend of OA as Solicitor General is a welcome development, especially if publishers follow through on their threat to file suit against the NIH policy or a future public access policy.
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.
