http://www.jta.org/cgi%2Dbin/iowa/news/article/20030326Documentsjustfound.html

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_03_11_fosblogarchive.html#117396334453564689

Polimetrica, a publisher of OA monographs, has released an Open Access Manifesto, March 12, 2007. Excerpt:

Polimetrica Publisher works from a simple premise: that for a better future of the people it's possible to disseminate the knowledge by publishing innovative books freely accessible to anyone in the world who might be interested.

Informed by that premise, we're trying to build a new model of scientific publishing that embraces economic self-subsistence, openness, and fairness; the model is based on the following elements:

1. each scientific book is published in two editions: a printed edition, available in the market, and an electronic edition, freely available through the web; both editions are identified by a different ISBN code.
2. each scientific book is edited in collaboration with universities or with authoritative professors or specialists.
3. the printed edition is distributed on the international market.
4. the electronic edition is free access through the Polimetrica web site.
5. Polimetrica pays to the author or to the academic institution on all sales of the printed edition a 10% royalty of the net receipts.
6. each scientific publication is funded by a contribution of 1.500 Euros about.
7. anyone interested in our activities is encouraged to buy a membership; the members will have access to special conditions. Additional information [is available here]....

Comment. Kudos to Polimetrica and especially to Giovanni Sica, its CEO. There's enough evidence now that full-text OA stimulates a net increase in sales, at least for monographs (not necessarily for books of useful snippets like encyclopedias or cookbooks), that I expect to see more monograph publishers follow the lead of the National Academies Press and Polimetrica and commit themselves to OA. Publishers who don't believe that the economics will work for them should experiment --as the American Association of University Presses (AAUP) recommended just last month.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Academies_Press

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_03_11_fosblogarchive.html#117397871941833272

Met + ARTstor = free scholarly use of images

Metropolitan Museum and ARTstor Announce Pioneering Initiative to Provide Digital Images to Scholars at No Charge, a press release from the Met, March 12, 2007. Excerpt:

In a new initiative designed to assist scholars with teaching, study, and the publication of academic works, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will distribute, free of charge, high-resolution digital images from an expanding array of works in its renowned collection for use in academic publications. This new service, which is effective immediately, is available through ARTstor, a non-profit organization that makes art images available for educational use.

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art has long sought to address the significant challenges that scholars confront in seeking to secure and license images of objects from the Museum's collections," stated Metropolitan Museum Director Philippe de Montebello in making the announcement. "We hope, through this collaboration, to play a pioneering role in addressing one of the profound challenges facing scholars in art history, and scholarly publishing, today."



ARTstor is a fee-based service, accessible only for subscribers.

See also http://musematic.net/?p=109#comment-2024 (Dec 14, 2006)

On the V&A decision see
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/3012289/

http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

This listserv will be deleted at the end of this month if SAA don't change their decision.

From the blogosphere:
http://prelingerlibrary.blogspot.com/2007/03/society-of-american-archivists-decides.html

http://www.google.de/blogsearch?hl=de&q=listserv+saa&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d

There are a lot of protest letters in the A&A list.

Quoting only one letter:

Stephen E. Novak 14.03.2007 14:14

Dear Ms. Adkins:

I am surprised and distressed at Council's approval of the destruction
of the A&A List Archives. I find Council's appraisal of the value of
the Archives to be incomprehensible: besides its great practical use,
the List Archives is a remarkable historical resource for the
development of the profession in a time of great change. That it does
not reflect the activities of SAA may be true, but then that has never
been the purpose of the List.

Frankly, this decision is so antithetical to the whole spirit of the
profession, that I can only hope that it was made in a fit of
absent-mindedness.

On a practical note, when fellow archivists insist they don't join SAA
because it "doesn't give me anything," I have in the last few years been
able to point to the A&A List and its very useful Archives. Obviously,
after March I won't be able to make that argument.

I respectfully request Council to reconsider this decision, to affirm
the value of the A&A List Archives, and to follow up the several
generous offers to host the Archives that have been made on the A&A List.

Sincerely,

--
Stephen E. Novak
Head, Archives & Special Collections
Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library
Columbia University Medical Center

See also
http://thesecretmirror.com/archives/saa-listserv
In all, I find this to be an embarrassment to the profession. How are we to be trusted with retaining the memory of society if we can’t even retain our own?

http://www.publicaccesstoresearch.org/



Eight non-profit organizations have launched a Petition for Public Access to Publicly Funded Research in the United States. From the site:

This petition builds on the 23,000+ signatures collected from around the world in support of free and open access to European research and for the recommendations proposed in the EU's 'Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe' as well as the 132 higher education leaders who have written of their explicit support for public access to publicly funded research.

Sign this petition to register your support for free and open access to research funded by the U.S. Federal government. For more information on current policies and legislation for taxpayer access to federally funded research – including the Federal Research Public Access Act – visit the Alliance for Taxpayer Access Web site.

Please sign it as an individual, encourage your institution to sign it as an institution, and spread the word. Your support will be critical in persuading Congress to adopt FRPAA. Please sign it even you have already signed the European petition.

The European petition called for strong OA policy in Europe, and the new US petition calls for strong OA policy in the US. The European petition welcomed signatories from around the world, but especially encouraged them from European researchers and research institutions; the US petition welcomes signatories from every country, but especially encourages them from the US researchers and institutions.

The organizations sponsoring the petition are the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA), American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), American Library Association (ALA), Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), FreeCulture, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), Public Knowledge (PK), and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).

Via: Open Access News

Please note that it could be possible to try several times to recognize the captcha picture!

The Library of the University of Michigan is the only Google Books partner which has added link to the books in its OPAC Mirlyn:
http://mirlyn.lib.umich.edu/

Go to "Advanced search" and fill in the words (anywhere):

Includes both image files and keyword searchable text

Using the year filter 1400-1864 there are today 13093 books in the catalog which could be viewed freely outside the US. German books: 1259.

See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=umich+and+google

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/business/yourmoney/11archive.html?em&ex=1173762000&en=1553a6b205a395e2&ei=5087%0A

Digitization efforts in the US (including NARA).

[Forwarded from the Library of Congress, via the DIG_REF mailing list]

"Left my family and started on my long trip across the plains." With these quiet words, Mary Ringo began the tale of her family's journey from Missouri to Utah. Join us as we follow her wagons across the plains through storms and desert, disease, Indian attacks, and death.

Focusing on a single document, Sheridan Harvey, Library of Congress Reference Specialist for Women's Studies, uses other first-person accounts, maps, and photographs to augment Mary's story and to explore the rich history of America's overland journeys.

When: Wednesday, March 21, 2:00 p.m. (E.D.T.), 1:00 p.m. CST
= 6 p.m. GMT = 19:00 CET

To attend, go to
http://67.19.231.218/v4/login.asp?r=67955673&p=0

Type your name and click "Enter" to go into the online room. A small software applet will download to your computer as you enter the room. All that is needed is an Internet connection, sound card, and speakers. A headset with microphone will enable you to speak to the group.

Log on 5 minutes early to allow for the web conference software to be downloaded automatically to your computer. For further assistance, have a look at
http://www.opal-online.org/ivocalizetraining.htm

The event, like previous ones, will later become available via the OPAL Podcast, http://opalpodcast.blogspot.com/

For more information about upcoming programs, see Online Programming for All Libraries (OPAL) at http://www.opal-online.org/progschrono.htm.

For more background to the program have a look at

·American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States -
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/

·Women's History Month Resource Page -
http://www.loc.gov/topics/womenshistory/

Weitere Rubrik: Frauenarchive

http://findingaids.cjh.org/?fnm=SelmaSternTaeubler&pnm=LBI

The Jewish historian and scholar Selma Stern-Taeubler was born in 1890 in Kippenheim, Baden, and was the first archivist of the American Jewish Archives. She died in 1981.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day