Stop ACTA

Protests across the world tomorrow.

The Sky is Rising

The Sky is Rising - a detailed look at the state of the entertainment industry

Anti-ACTA Demo 11 Feb

London will see a major anti ACTA  demonstration on Saturday 11 February. Link here.

The Cost of Knowledge

Boingboing gave us an incredible collection of posts last week and there follows some links to these ...

Our first is to The Cost of Knowledge - a website protesting against the publisher Elsevier's restrictive policies on access to academic scientific knowledge. I cannot freely access anything published in Elsevier's scientific journals but am forced to pay an arm and a leg for the knowledge contained therein.

The Cost of Knowledge declares

1. They charge exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions to individual journals. 

2. In the light of these high prices, the only realistic option for many libraries is to agree to buy very large "bundles", which will include many journals that those libraries do not actually want. Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting the fact that some of their journals are essential. 

3. They support measures such as SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, that aim to restrict the free exchange of information. 

...and has an online petition asking you to boycott Elsevier.

The Cost of Knowledge also pointed me to Polymath - "a collection of links to information, opinion, activism, and other issues concerning the practices of research journal publishers".

Which then pointed me to this campaign against the US Research Works Act  ... "A recently introduced bill, H.R. 3699, the Research Works Act, would seriously threaten public access to federally funded research.

The bill would not only restrict internet access to articles published in scholarly journals and books; it would also severely hamper Creative Commons content.

Why is Open Access so important? Internet access to federally funded research allows people with medical conditions to stay informed about new studies and innovations.

Access also helps professionals, including doctors, to continue their educations by keeping up to date on the research literature in their fields.

In developing nations, Open Access is especially important, as institutions often don't have the funding to provide health care professionals with scholarly literature through other means."

Open Access Week

From October 24-30 it is Open Access Week.

Open Access Week, a global event now entering its fourth [actually fifth year], is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.

“Open Access” to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.

Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year. Open Access Week is a key opportunity for all members of the community to take action to keep this momentum moving forward.

OA Week is an invaluable chance to connect the global momentum toward open sharing with the advancement of policy changes on the local level. Universities, colleges, research institutes, funding agencies, libraries, and think tanks have used Open Access Week as a platform to host faculty votes on campus open-access policies, to issue reports on the societal and economic benefits of Open Access, to commit new funds in support of open-access publication, and more."

Britain's most prestigious scientific institution, the Royal Society, made its entire archives open-access and online on 26 October

"The Royal Society has today announced that its world-famous historical journal archive – which includes the first ever peer-reviewed scientific journal – has been made permanently free to access online.

Around 60,000 historical scientific papers are accessible via a fully searchable online archive, with papers published more than 70 years ago now becoming freely available.

The Royal Society is the world’s oldest scientific publisher, with the first edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society appearing in 1665. Henry Oldenburg – Secretary of the Royal Society and first Editor of the publication – ensured that it was “licensed by the council of the society, being first reviewed by some of the members of the same”, thus making it the first ever peer-reviewed journal."

News on Open Access in Africa can be found here.