@AmSciForum (Stevan Harnad) advocates federating local/institutionalrepositories #OSTP

Via WebEx from Montreal

Jesse Lambertson, @jltaglich, provides a different take on #OSTPpolicy, @DPLA should take note

Jesse Lambertson (@jltaglich) from Arlington Public Library, comments at the Public Access to Federally Supported R&D Publications meeting.

Key point: once outside the academic environment, citizens lose access to scholarly content not typically in public libraries.

Sitting in the Gordon Moore seat at the NAS

At the Comment meeting on Public Access to Federally Supported R&D Publications

"Impact of new technologies on scholarly publishing: the serials crises and beyond" by Jorge Contreras

"Impact of new technologies on scholarly publishing: the serials crises and beyond" by Jorge Contreras

Overview of copyright law and the current state of affairs.

For literature, broad copyright may be justified, but in scientific publishing the restrictions of copyright and the assignment of rights to publishers leads to serious questions about conflicts between the aims of science and restrictions of current copyright implementation.

High costs of scientific journals, the "serials crises", has led to a number of debate topics, but most clearly created the open access movement. PLEASE NOTE: open access is NOT the same as public domain.

OA has many flavors:

- green, self-archiving

- gold, author pays a charge to fund access

Both have various challenges, many which revolve around cost.

Overview of the recent OSTP memorandum and Executive Order on the topic.

[notes taken on the fly, errors mine and not the speaker's]

Hanging with Einstein at that National Academy of Sciences

Here for a meeting on the OSTP open science initiative

Mario Biagioli of UC Davis on turning points in science publishing

Public Access to Federally Supported R&D Publications meeting

Fascinating overview of the twisty history of the "science article." Starting with Galileo and Newton, most publication sponsored because of high costs. There was more concern with "propriety" than "property".

Biggest concern was not theft for profit, but theft for credit. Complex systems with ciphers and secret letters were used to ensure proper credit and priority.

Two models arose: academies and journals.

The Academy

Academies, being member organizations, focused on meetings and publication of correspondence. Academic publications were both publishers and licensors. The academies also became, de facto, the creation of peer review. But done openly by members with the purpose to protect the academy and state from embarrassment.

Publication by those "inside" and "outside" the academy very clearly defined.

The Journal Article

Late 18th/early 19th century sees a change from an oral, presentation style of research to a "literature" style that focuses on print dissemination.

This change disrupts the academic model; in reaction, the academies begin to publish non-peer reviewed proceedings that are quick to market, but create citation and precedence  nightmares.

Paraphrasing Maxwell, "the book of nature becomes the magazine of nature".

Created a change from academies as authoritative judges to publishers of authoritative journals. 

The history of the article is linear and progressive, not a god-given and unchanging norm.

Technology is now rapidly accelerating in the change.

[notes taken on the fly, errors mine and not the speaker's]