"We believe that open access to all scholarly research is a public good. In accordance with statements in support of open access including the Budapest Open Access Initiative and the IFLA Statement on Open Access to Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation, we affirm that the products of our scholarship in any form should be made openly accessible as a means to support a more sustainable and inclusive system of scholarship and to reduce information inequality.

As library and information professionals with an ethical standpoint of ‘access for all’ we believe that our profession must live up to its ideals and principles of accessibility and information sharing. The scholarly communication process has moved too far from these ideals and we feel that it is now time to affirm our support for open scholarship.

Therefore, we the undersigned, pledge to make ALL OF OUR WORK open access wherever possible. This may include: placing versions of our work in institutional and disciplinary repositories, publishing in open access journals, refusing to perform editorial or refereeing work for closed access journals, retaining copyright to our work, and licensing our work for broad and expansive re-use using Creative Commons licenses (with a preference for CC-BY wherever possible)."

http://theinformed.org.uk/open-access/

Help us celebrate international archives day on 9th June 2014, by sending us a copy of an archive image linked to the locality in which you work. The image will be uploaded onto a site specially developed by the International Council on Archives' local, municipal and territorial group of archivists. The site ( http://www.internationalarchivesday.org/ ) will go live on 9th June.

To participate, please send a jpeg image of your document to Mies Langelaar in Rotterdam, at the following address: Langelaar M. (Mies) m.langelaar@Rotterdam.nl. You should also add two sentences: one describing the document you have selected and another one containing a message to the international archival community. We would also be grateful if you could pass this message on to other archivists in your country.

We look forward to sharing your treasures with colleagues around the world.

Happy International Archives Day! (Archivliste)

May 14, 2014

As organizations committed to the principle that access to information
advances discovery, accelerates innovation and improves education, we
endorse the policies and practices that enable Open Access -
immediate, barrier free access to and reuse of scholarly articles.

Policies that promote Open Access are increasingly being adopted world
wide by research funders, academic institutions and national
governments in order to improve the use and value of scholarly
research. We fully support such policies and the dual avenues for
implementing them: open access repositories and open access journals.
These policies play an important role in creating an environment where
our collective investments in research can be maximized for the
benefit of the public, and for society at large.

Many policies have employed the use of embargo periods - delayed
access to research articles for a short period of time to help protect
publishers’ subscription revenue as they shift to new business models.
We consider the use of embargo periods as an acceptable transitional
mechanism to help facilitate a wholesale shift towards Open Access.
However, embargo periods dilute the benefits of open access policies
and we believe that, if they are adopted, they should be no more than
6 months for the life and physical sciences, 12 months for social
sciences and humanities. We further believe that mechanisms for
reducing - or eliminating - embargo periods should be included in any
Open Access policy.

Any delay in the open availability of research articles curtails
scientific progress and stifles innovation, and places unnecessary
constraints in delivering the benefits of research back to the public.

Signatories

COAR: Confederation of Open Access Repositories

EIFL: Electronic Information for Libraries

LIBER: Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche - Association
of European Research Libraries

National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences

OpenAIRE: Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe

SPARC: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

Source: Liblicense

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-uk-government-are-opening-thousands-of-secret-files-to-the-public

On colonial history records see also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/129660962/

http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/629755516/

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27369169

https://livesofthefirstworldwar.org/

"The Penn Libraries is sad to announce the passing of Lawrence J. Schoenberg, C'53 WG'57, on May 7. A much valued and long-time member of the Libraries' Board of Overseers and Board Chair Emeritus, Larry radically contributed to the holdings of Penn's Special Collections, through his vision and his philanthropy, and he made possible access to their contents internationally. Together with his wife Barbara, Larry created an institutional environment for creative learning and discovery centered on Special Collections in the Digital Age. In 1996, he founded the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image, which has now digitized and made publicly available over 2,000,000 special collections images. In 2011, the Schoenbergs donated their remarkable collection of over 290 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts to the Libraries. Their gift culminated in the creation of the Schoenberg Institute of Manuscript Studies, housed in the Van-Pelt Dietrich Library Center. The Institute's mission, infused by Larry's imagination and foresight, is to bring medieval manuscripts, modern technology and people together for the advancement of knowledge. In this, Larry Schoenberg will have an enduring legacy and the gratitude of scholars at Penn and around the world." (EXLIBRIS-L)

"There will be a lot written and said about Terry Cook following his passing yesterday. He was a Canadian archivist whose theories of appraisal have shaped archival theory."
http://sites.tufts.edu/dca/2014/05/13/in-memoriam-of-terry-cook/

http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.de/2014/05/terry-cook-rip.html

"DocExplore is a free open source software suite enabling the easy creation of interactive digital books suitable for the promotion of heritage collections.

It's easy to use:
1.Import the pages of your book
2.Add text, images, sound and video to parts of the pages
3.View it on your computer or put it online on your website

More information, demonstrations and downloads at www.docexplore.eu

DocExplore is the result of an academic project, initiated by computer science laboratories LITIS (University of Rouen, France) and EDA (University of Kent, U.K.) in 2009, funded by the Interreg IVa program. It received contributions from historians, librarians and archivists of the GRHIS (University of Rouen), the Rouen Public Libraries, CMEMS (University of Kent) and the Archives of the Canterbury Cathedral." (dm-l)

Sample: http://www.docexplore.eu/reader/

Compiled by Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, an Ottoman military attaché in Istanbul, the book contains entries by his associates spanning 1587 to 1612.

http://news.getty.edu/press-materials/press-releases/Featured+news/book-of-friends.htm

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/929.htm

" 08 May 2014

From today The National Archives will begin to archive tweets and You Tube videos published by UK central government departments from their official Twitter and YouTube social media platforms. "