David Prosser has two articles in the December issue of High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine: (1) Science and Technology Committee Report on Scientific Publications and (2) Science and Technology Committee Report on Scientific Publications - The UK Government's Response. Excerpt from the second: 'In what may be the most important sentence in the response, the Government noted that 'Many of the issues raised in the Select Committee Report are being taken forward by bodies funded either through Government or their agencies.' So, while refusing to directly take up any of the recommendations, the Government is not stopping those initiates towards widening access being advanced by its agencies. In particular, two agencies are working towards open access. The first is Research Councils, UK (RCUK), which acts as a representative body of the seven UK Research Councils (which together spend over £2 billion each year on research). RCUK is currently working on a policy for access to the research literature for publication early in 2005. There is nothing in the Government's response to stop the Research Councils from making it mandatory for researchers to deposit their papers in local repositories.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/06/2004 03:44:00 PM.
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.
