So while I’ve been on my moviemaking-induced blog semi-hiatus, a lot of things have been happening in open access:
- We have a new Open Access Directory wiki, with real institutional backing (doesn’t surprise me that it’s Simmons, either; they’re good people there) and real wiki gardeners. I’m mildly worried about the edit-access policies being a tad restrictive, but we’ll see. This is a good and valuable thing, and when I get out from under this summer’s over-busyness, I’ll set aside some time to contribute.
- Harvard Law followed in the footsteps of Harvard FAS, unanimously approving a permissions mandate. Good for them, of course. If this keeps up, though, I may end up buying the drinks. I’m not sure it’s fair to count Harvard and Harvard Law as separate institutions, and thank goodness I thought to restrict myself to the United States or I’d have lost this bet already. I think I still have a fair chance of coming out financially unscathed—but the University of California system could sink me in a stroke. I’d love to see ’em do it. And I probably owe Willinsky an apology; I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew what was cooking at Harvard when he wrote that.
- Mike Rossner of Rockefeller UP continues his astounding streak of win and awesome, returning copyright on journal articles to authors on condition they make the content OA, and putting CC licenses on published articles going forward. Do we have an award we can give him? He deserves a big shiny meter-tall trophy or something of that nature.
Cheers all ’round!
One small onion to the NIH, which is refusing to budge from its somebody-else’s-problem stance on recalcitrant publishers. I still think this one’s going to bite them, and it may turn out to bite us, too. We’ll see. Nobody will be happier if I’m wrong than I.
