Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, March 27, 2009

Japanese libraries call for OA

JANUL Statement on Open Access:  Pursuing New Scholarly Communication, a public statement from the Japan Association of National University Libraries (JANUL), March 16, 2009.  Excerpt:

Free and public accessibility to the results of scientific research must be an essential component of research promotion and also serves as the foundation for future development of science and society. University libraries recognize that it should be their crucial mission to contribute to scholarly development and social progress....Therefore, we at the Japan Association of National University Libraries (JANUL) appeal strongly to the world in support for the promotion of 'open access.' ...

JANUL makes the following appeal to the stakeholders in all fields to realize 'open access' for sustaining new scholarly communication:

Government and Funding Agencies should:

  1. Implement the policies needed to promote 'open access' to publicly-funded research products.
  2. Accelerate 'open access' to the digital data of cultural heritages and research data.

Researchers should:

  1. Endorse 'open access' and cooperate to make their research results publicly accessible.
  2. Try to self-archive their articles in their institutional repositories.
  3. Try to retain the right of copyright ownership for their articles, i.e. their right to use them for educational, research, or other non-commercial purposes.

Universities and Research Institutions should:

  1. Help affiliated researchers to make their research outputs openly accessible.
  2. Try to develop the functionality needed (institutional repositories) to disseminate the affiliated researchers' scientific results.

Scientific Societies and Associations should:

  1. Endorse 'open access' and cooperate to make their affiliated researchers' research results publicly accessible.
  2. Foster 'open access' with society-published journals, through shortening embargo periods and providing published version of articles to institutional repositories.

Publishers should:

  1. Nurture understanding of and cooperation with other stakeholders to realize 'open access.'
  2. Enhance utilization of research results by respecting author's rights and demanding only the rights necessary for publication.
  3. Advance 'open access' through shortening embargo periods and providing publisher version of articles to institutional repositories.

University Libraries should:

  1. Appeal to library users and other related parties for support and cooperation toward 'open access' and promote it in cooperation with faculty and researchers.
  2. Try to develop institutional repositories as a disseminating source for 'open access' and university-launched research results.

Comment.  A good list.  I'd add that universities, like public funding agencies, should mandate green OA for their research output.  For details and supporting arguments, see my article in last month's SOAN.

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