The Yemen parliament is considering a bill to enhance citizen access to information. Most of it concerns public sector information and government sunshine practices. But it also touches on access to research.
Parliament is scheduled to discuss the information draft law during its present legislative session, after it was passed at the meeting of the Council of Ministers, held last December, acting on a proposal made by the National Information Center (NIC).
The advanced information draft law...places Yemen among those countries with modern legislatures that ensure the freedom of information and the citizen’s right of access....
To ensure intellectual property rights, the draft law obliges all scientific and research institutions to put down copies of research or intellectual periodicals which they carry out or supervise....
Comment. Unfortunately, the key paragraph is obscure. What does it mean to "put down copies of research"? Deposit them in repositories? Pull them off the internet? The general context suggests that access to research must be wider and easier, if not open. But the immediate context ("To ensure intellectual property rights...") suggests the opposite. Can any OAN readers help sort this out? If so, please drop me a line or post your findings or translations to SOAF.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/03/2009 11:51:00 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.
