Heather Morrison, Thomas Krichel: a man with ideas, and drive!OA Librarian, February 13, 2005. Another installment in Heather's celebration of librarians working for OA. Excerpt:
Money doesn't make the world go round. Ideas do! So said Thomas Krichel, Assistant Professor, Palmer School of Library and Information Studies, Long Island University, at the First E-LIS Workshop....May I add: it is people with ideas - and the drive and determination to see their ideas realized - that really make the world go round! People like Thomas Krichel - E-LIS team member, early open access pioneer, and founder of the world's second largest archive (after arXiv), RePec. Thomas is recognized twice on Peter Suber's Open Access Timeline. On February 1, 1993, Thomas launched the Working Papers in Economics (WoPEc), with the deposit of an open access working paper (not his own), the first in economics. On May 12, 1997, Thomas launched RePEc, Research Papers in Economics, which as of today holds over 362,000 items of interest, 261,000 of which are available online....WoPEC and RePEc both emerge from traditional practices in economics, which has a strong working papers culture. The distributed archives approach also reflects practice in the field. This model works so well because it fits the discipline, rather than the other way around....The American Economics Association has been collecting information about working papers for years, but their collection was not as comprehensive as RePEc's. Now, information about RePEC is being added directly to the Association's EconLit. Why would a volunteer-based organization like RePEc choose to give away their work to a profit-making publisher for free? Because, says Thomas Krichel, this works to the advantage of both: EconLit is more valuable, and placing your work in RePEc is the best way to ensure your working papers are included in EconLit, which enhances the success of RePEc....Thomas' advice on what students and librarians should be learning for the future: open source software!
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/14/2006 11:40:00 AM.
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.
