Welcome to the Free Online Scholarship (FOS)
Newsletter
May 23, 2002
More on the big koan: self-archiving
Following my essay in the
last issue on why FOS progress has been slow, our
discussion forum received many thoughtful postings. Have a look.
There are two primary paths to FOS: open-access journals and
self-archiving. Progress along both paths has been slower than our
opportunities would allow. However, it's easier to explain slow movement
along the first path than along the second. All eight of the points in my
essay apply to open-access journals, but only a few apply to self-archiving
--namely, that scholars tend not to understand the problem, that they tend to
misunderstand the solution, and that slow progress itself has created a vicious
circle in which relatively few institutions have created eprints
archives.
If you want to deepen the discussion, focus on why self-archiving isn't
spreading more rapidly than it is. Creating an archive is now painless
with free software, maintaining an archive takes minimal effort, hosting one
takes server space that any university could donate without noticing, and the
benefits are immediate and cumulative.
Moreover, there is a network effect. One telephone is useless, but
every new telephone makes every existing telephone more useful. The
situation is similar though not quite so stark with eprints archives. One
eprints archive is useful for the authors who deposit their papers in it and for
the readers who happen to need access to those papers. But readers are
much more likely to find what they need as more archives join the network of
distributed archives. Cross-archive search engines make it unnecessary for
readers to know which archives exist, where they are located, or what they
contain. Researchers using these search engines will notice that they find
what they are looking for more often as more archives join the system. As
more readers and researchers find the body of archived literature useful, more
will turn to it in their research, multiplying the benefits for authors as
well. Every new archive makes every existing archive more
useful.
That is one more reason for every university and laboratory to start an
archive, in case there weren't enough reasons already. Think of it like a
matching grant. If your employer matches your charitable contributions,
you have a rare chance to amplify your donations. In this case, the
network effect matches your FOS contribution. When your institution
participates in self-archiving, the gain to all users is greater than the set of
papers in your archive.
So if it's easy, free, useful, and ready right now, why isn't it spreading
faster?
Self-Archiving FAQ
(In case your institution's administrators or tech people are misled about
the simplicity or legality of self-archiving.)
Eprints software, for creating OAI-compliant archives for
self-archiving
(To get started now.)
You can advance the cause of self-archiving if you are a scholar or
represent a university, library, journal, publisher, foundation, learned
society, or government. Here's how.
(No more excuses. It's not just an opportunity for other people to
seize.)
FOS discussion forum
(Anyone may read; only subscribers may post; subscription is
free.)
----------
More on the big koan: open-access journals
Here are two news stories about BioMed Central (BMC). My comments on
them appear inconsistent. But I'll argue that an aspect of the big koan
explains this deceptive appearance.
(1) BMC has launched the _Journal of Biology_, a new open-access journal
which it hopes will challenge _Nature_, _Science_, and _Cell_. JBiol will
have a distinguished editorial board headed by Martin Raff, whom ISI ranks as
one of the 10 most cited scientists in the UK. The board will include
three Nobel laureates, Harold Varmus, Michael Brown, and Joseph Goldstein, and
two former editors at _Nature_, Theodora Bloom and Peter Newmark. The
first issue will appear in June.
This is an exactly what the serials landscape needs today. There is
no reason why the world's most eminent scientists can't work for an open-access
journal, although there is a suspicion that this is somehow unnatural.
Nobody quite admits to holding the belief that journal quality requires price
barriers, or that filtering readers by wealth helps a journal filter manuscripts
by quality, but the belief has a widespread underground existence just the
same. It's a holdover from the days when the internet was dominated by
hobbyists, and serious academics looked smart for saying, "you get what you pay
for". Although the web has moved on, and pockets of free content have long
since proved their quality and reliability, this long-refuted belief may still
lurk in the subconscious minds of people who are otherwise wide awake and
informed. It may also arise from confusing two different gate-keeping
functions, one to block unworthy manuscripts from publication and one to block
non-subscribers from reading. But if anyone still needs proof that
superlative editors and superlative quality control are compatible with open
access to the resulting papers, JBiol is providing it.
I applaud the launch of an open-access journal with a world-class editorial
board. Still, I long for the day when open access will be so ordinary that
the launch of an open-access journal with a merely competent board will garner
the interest and respect accorded to other competent journals.
Journal of Biology
BMC press release
(2) BMC has created a web page of "pioneering authors" whose support for
open-access publishing has advanced a revolution that "will be felt by the whole
world-wide scientific community". The page is an alphabetical database of
authors who have published in BMC journals.
It would be easy to draw the conclusion that BMC is simply blowing its own
horn here, and that was my first impression. But in fact the list is
useful for two reasons. First, these authors do deserve thanks for their
willingness to publish in new journals. If there is a vicious circle
dissuading first-rate authors from submitting their work to new journals until
the journals are well-respected, when the journals cannot become well-respected
without first-rate submissions, then these authors have proved their willingness
to break the circle. If you have doubts without evidence, then you might
think it more likely that these authors are second-rate than both first-rate and
courageous. But here's where the second virtue of the list comes in.
You can search it and satisfy yourself that it includes scientists who are
significant by any standard. The list is searchable by author,
institution, and nation.
* Postscript. My comments on these two stories seem
inconsistent. In one I'm saying that the quality of open-access journals
can be as high as as the quality of any traditional journal. In the other
I'm thanking authors for their willingness to publish in open-access
journals. It appears that open-access journals are strong enough to praise
and weak enough to cosset.
But I stand by both sets of comments. Their juxtaposition highlights
the difference between quality and prestige, or real excellence and known or
reputed excellence. The difference matters because the incentive for
authors to submit their work to a given journal is much more a function of the
journal's prestige than its quality, at least when the two differ.
Prestige takes time to cultivate, but quality can exist from birth.
Because open-access journals are new, even those excellent from birth must take
time to earn prestige proportional to their quality. This gap between
their quality and prestige can deter submissions, which in turn will delay the
closing of the gap. All new journals face this gap and the vicious circle
it creates. There may be many creative ways to break the circle, but BMC
is using two of them here. One is to make a journal self-evidently
excellent from birth and use this fact to recruit submissions. Another is
to find authors willing to submit their work to open-access journals even before
the prestige gap is closed, and then to thank them publicly for their insight
and courage.
----------
More on the big koan: Macchiavelli
In _The Future of Ideas_, Lawrence Lessig quotes the following passage from
Macchiavelli. It goes a long way to answer the big koan.
"Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime,
and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the
new. Their support is indifferent partly from fear and partly because they
are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have
tested them by experience."
(From _The Prince_, W. W. Norton, 1992, at p. 17. Quoted by Lessig,
Random House, 2001, at p. 6.)
----------
Housekeeping
* I'm still investigating a handful of possible new hosts for the FOS
Newsletter and discussion forum. Please forgive any ads that Topica may
insert into the newsletter before I finish picking a new host and making the
move.
----------
Developments
* In March the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore hosted two
workshops on electronic publishing and interoperable open archives. The
workshops addressed editors and support staff of Indian non-profit STM journals,
and focused on the advantages, economics, technology, and nuts and bolts of
electronic publishing, especially in open archives. "The overarching
concern behind the idea of the workshops is the urgent need to increase
visibility of Indian journals by making them available on the Internet in
formats that take advantage of search and retrieval procedures."
Workshops home page
(Thanks to Leslie Chan.)
The Workshops' useful page of FOS links, still under construction
* BioOne is producing a free online book in collaboration with the American
Society of Plant Biologists. The book will summarize the state of current
knowledge on the plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. Containing 100 invited
chapters, it will eventually link all gene names to sequence databases as well
as link citations to abstracts and sections to one another.
BioOne
(The BioOne "news" page is not up to date.)
----------
New on the net
* The papers presented at the recent "Access and Preservation of Electronic
Information" conference (Barcelona, May 7-8) are now online.
* The Open Content Network is an emerging P2P content delivery system for
any kind of digital content in the public domain, from music and film to
software and scholarship. Supporters can help the cause by donating
bandwidth and diskspace to the network. (PS: The generality of the
service makes me suppose that it could distribute scholarly texts, although the
site doesn't mention this possibility. I'd be interested in hearing from
anyone who uses the network for scholarly purposes.)
(Thanks to Info Anarchy.)
----------
Share your thoughts
* The American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) is
sponsoring an essay contest on the topic, "International Digital Libraries and
Information Science and Technology Advances in Developing Countries".
Authors of the six winning papers will be awarded two-year ASIST memberships and
be invited to present their papers at ASIST's November conference in
Philadelphia. The submission deadline is July 31.
* LITC and JISC are conducting a study of commercial "library portal"
software. The study directors would welcome comments from librarians or
others who have evaluated any of these packages. To share your thoughts,
write to Andrew Cox, <coxam [at] SBU.AC.UK>
----------
In other publications
* The June issue of Walt Crawford's _Cites & Insights_ is now
online. Walt discusses his work on OpenURL support in RLG's Eureka (and
other RLG news), the COWLZ preservation initiative (in which FOSN is
participating), Tim O'Reilly's predictions for our technological future, the
demise of _The Future of Print Media Journal_, reviews of four essays on the
significance of blogging, reviews of a handful of other "good stuff" (including
three of my recent FOSN essays), and his thoughts on mandating web filters in
public libraries.
* In the May/June _Online_, Terence Huwe describes the University of
California's Labor Research Web and argues that flat web portals have advantages
and potential that sophisticated web designers often overlook.
* The May 23 _Serials eNews_ contains a summary of the discussion on
LibLicense and other discussion lists of the true costs of publishing electronic
journals (see
FOSN for 4/29/02).
* In the May 20 _Information Today_, Barbara Quint reports on BioMed
Central's recent partnership with SPARC and its recruitment of distinguished
institutional members like the National Institutes of Health (see
FOSN for
5/15/02).
* The May 20 _Pandia Search Engine News_ has an anonymous review of five
free online academic search directories: the Librarian's Index to the
Internet, InfoMine, the Resource Discovery Network, and Academic Info.
(Thanks to Gary Price's VASND.)
* In the May 20 _Wired_, Michelle Delio describes James Burke's Knowledge
Web, an ambitious project to show how pieces of knowledge are connected to one
another.
* In the May 20 _Tech Central Station_, Howard Feinberg reports on the
survival of bad scientific ideas after their retraction or invalidation. A
1998 study by John Budd showed that 235 scientific articles "retracted due to
error, misconduct, failure to replicate results or other reasons" had been cited
2,034 times after their retraction, and that most of the citing papers did not
mention the retraction. Feinberg uses the Budd study to set up a
discussion of the recent fiasco at _Nature_, in which a paper was withdrawn
after publication by the editors who faced intensive lobbying both scientific
and non-scientific. (PS: Will FOS aggravate the problem of
overlooking retractions, by keeping old studies circulating forever in the
Google cache and Wayback Machine? Or will it mitigate the problem, by
allowing more intelligent searching and indexing?)
* In the May 16 _Chronicle of Higher Education_, Jeffrey Young reports that
the Public Library of Science (PLoS) boycott was "a bust". Few journals
complied, and few signatories boycotted those that did not comply. The
PLoS organizers admit this, but express disappointment that non-profit learned
societies were not better friends to the cause. Quoting Mike Eisen, one of
the PLoS founders: "I think that even the society publishers who in
principle supported us were acting like businessmen rather than
scientists." Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of _Science_ and former
president Stanford University, defended the non-profit publishers: "We're
thinking like nonprofit organizations that are trying to balance [economic needs
with service to the community]....We think we serve our community quite
well." PLoS hasn't given up. If existing journals won't convert to
open access, then PLoS will launch a new generation of open-access
journals. The PLoS journals will cover their costs with author (or
author-sponsor) fees of about $500 per accepted paper. The first of the
new journals will appear in January 2003.
* In a May 15 story for _Planet eBook_, Sam Vaknin reviews some emerging
technologies and practices that stretch the ways in which books and ebooks are
used, owned, copied, and even defined.
* In a May 15 posting to _Slashdot_, Jason Haas interviews Siva
Vaidhyanathan, author of _Copyright and Copywrongs_ (NYU Press, 2001).
Vaidhyanathan talks about the DMCA, the CBDTPA, and his upcoming book on P2P and
encryption.
(Thanks to Charles Bailey's Scholarly Electronic Publishing
Weblog.)
* In a May 14 story, Reuters reports that analysts are pessimistic about
the ebook market. The only optimists seem to be Adobe and Microsoft, the
largest companies trying to make and sell them. Quoting David Card from
Jupiter Media Metrix: "We haven't issued forecasts for the industry in two
years because the market's going nowhere. E-books were a dumb idea.
I am very negative on this market."
* The _Journal of Digital Information_ has posted some accepted papers on
FOS-related topics to its web site. They will be published in the next
issue.
J. van Ossenbruggen and two co-authors, "Hypermedia and the Semantic Web: A
Research Agenda"
C. Lueg, "Enabling Dissemination of User-Specific Information in the Usenet
Framework"
J. Clark and seven co-authors, "Digital Archive Network for
Anthropology"
X. Liu and six co-authors, "Federated Searching Interface Techniques for
Heterogeneous OAI Repositories"
* The May issue of _D-Lib Magazine_ is now online. It contains the
following FOS-related articles.
Rachel Heery and Harry Wagner, "A Metadata Registry for the Semantic
Web"
Michael Wright and two co-authors, "Meta-Design of a Community Digital
Library"
William LeFurgy, "Levels of Service for Digital Repositories"
Robert Sullivan, "Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property
Rights: A Digital Library Context"
William Kilbride, "FISH Launches New Web Site" (FISH = Forum on Information
Standards in Heritage; see
FOSN for 4/8/02.)
David Germano, "The Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library" (See
FOSN for
4/22/02.)
Richard Rinehart, "Archiving the Avant Garde: Documenting and Preserving
Variable Media Art"
Mary Lee, "Remaking Libraries for the Global Knowledge Renaissance"
* The Spring edition of _Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship_
Stephanie Bianchi reviews PubMed, and calls it "one of the world's greatest
Databases".
* The American Library Association has released the 2002 edition of its
annual report, _U.S. Serials Services Price Index_. This year's report was
prepared by Nancy Chaffin and Ajaye Bloomstone.
Barbara Albee and Brenda Dingley give a brief summary of the report in the
latest _American Libraries_.
* Ernest Miller and Joan Feigenbaum have put a paper online (apparently a
preprint) arguing that copying "is necessary for normal use" of digital works
and is therefore a poor predictor of intent to infringe. Copyright law in
the digital age, then, should stop focusing on the right to control copying and
shift to the right to control public distribution.
(Thanks to Charles Bailey's Scholarly Electronic Publishing
Weblog.)
* The National Academy Press has published _Access to Research Data in the
21st Century: An Ongoing Dialogue Among Interested Parties; Report of a
Workshop_. This 66 page booklet is available free online as well as in a
priced, print edition. The book is a report of a workshop on the 1999
Shelby Amendment, which requires researchers to make all the data generated by
federally funded research available to the public under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA). Chapter 5 considers methods of making data public
without using the cumbersome FOAI, for example, free online access together with
the software required to read the data.
----------
Following up (new developments in continuing stories)
To see past coverage of these stories in FOSN, use the search engine at the
FOSN archive.
* More on the Creative Commons
It has now launched.
News coverage of its launch.
Berkman Center summary of issues facing the Creative Commons.
Berkman Center report on how artists are responding to the Creative
Commons.
* More on the Elcomsoft/Sklyarov case
The BNA _Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal_ has a careful analysis
of Judge Whyte's recent ruling against Elcomsoft's constitutional
arguments.
Judge Whyte has set the trial date for August 26.
* More on the CBDTPA
In _Business Week_, Jane Black reviews the ominous consequences of the
CBDTPA for the open source movement.
* More on the DMCA
At the recent information commons conference in Washington DC, Rep. Rick
Boucher outlined his plan to amend the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA
(
FOSN for 5/15/02). He has now put the text of his talk online.
Reports on Boucher's plan to submit a Digital Fair Use Bill of Rights to
amend the DMCA.
Friends of the DMCA recently gathered in Washington to toast each other and
the law that advances their interests.
* More on the DeCSS cases
After 2600 Magazine lost its previous appeal before a three-judge panel of
the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, it asked the entire panel of Second Circuit
judges to review the decision. The court just said no, in a one-line
ruling. 2600 was convicted not only of distributing the DeCSS source code,
but of linking to sites that also did so. The magazine has 90 days to
decide whether to file an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Andrew Bunner (the DeCSS defendant who has so far won, in contrast to 2600
Magazine which has so far lost) will soon argue his case before the California
Supreme Court. Two months ago, the DVD CCA appealed its defeat to the
California Supreme Court and yesterday Bunner filed his reply brief. He is
represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the First Amendment
Project.
* More on the Eldred case
The Berkman Center has posted the Eldred brief and all the pro-Eldred
amicus briefs to its web site.
The Berkman Center has also created a home page for news on the Eldred
case.
The _Chronicle of Higher Education_ reports on the many law professors
writing amicus briefs on behalf of Eric Eldred. In addition to the
constitutional arguments, some of these briefs make the case that copyright
extension harms education and research.
Yale Law School used the Eldred case for its recent Moot Court
competition. Eldred won. LawMeme describes the real and moot court
versions of the case, and links to the moot court briefs.
----------
Catching up (old news I should have discovered earlier)
* Scott Nicholson has a web page on "bibliomining", which he describes as a
"combination of data mining, bibliometrics, statistics, and reporting tools used
to extract patterns of behavior-based artifacts from library systems."
(Thanks to Gary Price's VASND.)
* EBSCO has a free online database of publishers' license agreements.
(Thanks to Library News Daily.)
----------
Conferences
If you plan to attend one of the following conferences, please share your
observations with us through our discussion forum. (Conferences marked by
two asterisks are new since the last issue.)
* Libraries in the Digital Age 2002
Dubrovnik, May 21-26
* Taking the Plunge: Moving from Print to Electronic Journals
London, May 22
* Online Submission and Peer Review. Sponsored by the Journals
Committee of the Professional & Scholarly Publishing Division of the
AAP.
New York, May 22
* CAiSE '02. Advanced Information Systems Engineering
Toronto, May 27-31
* Workshop on Personalization Techniques in Electronic Publishing on the
Web: Trends and Perspectives
Malaga, Spain, May 28
* Applications of Metadata. Sponsored by the Electronic Publishing
Specialist Group of the British Computer Society.
London, May 29
* Society for Scholarly Publishing (AAP)
Boston, May 29-31
* Fair Use Seminar
Portland, Oregon, May 30
* Off the Wall and Online: Providing Web Access to Cultural
Collections
Lexington, Massachusetts, May 30-31
* Multimedia Content and Tools: Towards Information and Knowledge
Systems
London, May 30-31
* Advancing Knowledge: Expanding Horizons for Information
Science
Toronto, May 30 - June 1
* Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2002
Provo, Utah, May 30 - June 1
* International Association of Technological University Libraries Annual
Conference: Partnerships, Consortia, and 21st Century Library
Science
Kansas City, June 2-6
* Digital Behavior: European Forum on Digital Content Creation,
Management, and Distribution
Cologne, June 4-8
* DELOS Workshop on Evaluation of Digital Libraries: Testbeds,
Measurements, and Metrics
Budapest, June 6-7
* Social Implicatoins of Information and Communication Technology
Raleigh, North Carolina, June 6-8
* Electronic Resources and the Social Role of Libraries in the Future
Sudak, Ukraine, June 8-16
* First International Semantic Web Conference
Sardinia, June 9-12
* Frontiers of Ownership in the Digital Economy: Information Patents,
Database Protection and the Politics of Knowledge
Paris, June 10-11
* IASSIST 2002: Accelerating Access, Collaboration, and
Dissemination
University of Connecticut, June 11-15
** Building our Cultural Heritage --Electronically
Atlanta, June 17
* The Commons in an Age of Globalisation. Ninth Biennial Conference
of the International Association for the Study of Common Property
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, June 17-21
* Informing Science and IT Education
Cork, June 19-21
* 8th International Conference of European University Information
Systems
Porto, June 19-22
* Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers: Exploiting the Online Environment
for Maximum Advantage
Birmingham, June 20-21
* Transforming Serials: The Revolution Continues
Williamsburg, Virginia, June 20-23
* Delivering Content to Universities and Colleges: The Challenges of
the New Information Environment. Sponsored by JISC, PA, and ALPSP.
London, June 21
* Choices and Strategies for Preservation of the Collective Memory
Bolzano, Italy, June 25-29
* CIG Seminar: REVEALed: The Truth Behind the National Database
of Resources in Accessible Formats
London, June 26
* 4th International JISC/CNI Conference
Edinburgh, June 26-27
* Digitisation Summer School for Cultural Heritage Professionals
Glasgow, June 30 - July 5
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The Free Online Scholarship Newsletter is supported by a grant from the
Open Society Institute.
==========
This is the Free Online Scholarship Newsletter (ISSN 1535-7848).
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Peter Suber
Copyright (c) 2002, Peter Suber