To enhance the distribution of faculty research and scholarship, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences votes [unanimously] to give the University a worldwide license to make each faculty member’s scholarly articles available and to hold the copyright for them, so long as they are not sold for profit. The move seeks in part to overcome the inhibiting effects of (1) scholarly journals that often prevent scholars from using and distributing their own work and (2) journal prices so high that many institutions and individuals cancel their subscriptions....
PS: It was an exciting year at Harvard. If the OA mandate hadn't made the list of highlights, the year would have had to be much more exciting.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/06/2008 11:17:00 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.
