Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, January 30, 2009

Wikileaks will create OA for 10,000 CRS reports

Clay Shirky reprints a message from the Wikileaks announcement list:

Wikileaks to release nearly 10,000 Congressional Research Service reports

Wikileaks has obtained nearly 10,000 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports which it is preparing for publication. The CRS spends around $100M a year preparing high quality reports for members of Congress and Congressional committees. When members feel publication of a report is in their political interest, they are released. Alternatively reports that are not viewed as politically favorable are kept from the public eye....

Comment.  This is excellent news.  It's not the first project to provide retroactive OA to CRS reports, but it's probably the largest.  I don't say "retroactive and unauthorized OA" because CRS reports are uncopyrightable from birth, and no permission or authority is needed.  All that is needed is to get one's hands on a copy.  For details on the other CRS OA projects, and background on the quality and access barriers to CRS reports, see our past posts.