http://simon-tanner.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/african-manuscripts-treasure-in-danger.html

"300 [Timbuktu] manuscripts - that's all that has been digitised. Out of the thousands lost only 300 have been imaged by Aluka and maybe a few more hundreds by other means.

We have a task to do here. We have to be aware of the risk and rewards in digitising these manuscripts. "

http://nihonkenkyu.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/open-access-to-japanese-dissertations/

This are exciting news!

http://commoncrawl.org/

"Common Crawl is a non-profit foundation dedicated to providing an open repository of web crawl data that can be accessed and analyzed by everyone."

"The Max Planck Society (www.mpg.de/en) and the academic publishing house De Gruyter have signed a groundbreaking agreement to cooperate in the publication of Open Access books. The agreement covers texts intended for publication by scholars at the more than 80 individual Max Planck institutes working around the world today. It encompass the full range of disciplines in which the Max Planck Society is active, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and applies to both monographs and anthologies."

http://lib-resc.blogspot.de/2013/01/the-max-planck-society-and-de-gruyter.html

Update: http://www.open-access-publizieren.de/blog/?p=59 (German)

http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/01/22/the-mendeley-dilemma/

"My personal solution to my Mendeley dilemma is to find a software solution that embodies my politics. I want my software to have all the affordances and features of a society that cherishes open dialogue. It should be a tool that, through its use, reaffirms and establishes the politics I hold and it embodies. For me, that means adopting free or open source software. "

Via
http://infobib.de/blog/2013/01/25/nochmal-mendelsevier/

Heather Morrison in SCHOLCOMM list:

Sage Open has reduced their open access article processing fee to $99 per article. The announcement is posted here:
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/press/2013/jan/24_jan.htm

This is not the first OA publisher to come out with prices in this range. PeerJ, established by Peter Binfield (formerly PLoS ONE), has open access fees on a lifetime membership basis starting from $99.

This raises some interesting questions. For example:

What is the real cost of publishing in an open access online environment? Sage OPEN and PeerJ are both commercial companies. If $99 is sufficient to cover the costs of coordinating peer review and publication, why would anyone pay even the $1,350 charged by PLoS ONE, never mind the $3,000 plus charged by some of the traditional publishers under hybrid arrangements?

Dating medieval English charters
Authors:
Tilahun, Gelila; Feuerverger, Andrey; Gervers, Michael
Publication Date:
01/2013

http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.2405

See also
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/509876/the-algorithms-that-automatically-date-medieval-manuscripts/

http://www.jessicarichman.com/science-citizen.html

Aaron was an activist, a champion, and an incredibly smart guy who worked on things he really cared about. So much has been said about his life, his death, and his fight for research open access — and I’m glad to be part of this conversation.

Late last night, I noticed that @evavivalt was opening access to her papers online in tribute to the memory of Aaron Swartz. I tweeted to some people I know in Silicon Valley, and to some friends of Aaron’s, and then Anonymous picked it up — and it just caught on. We’ve now had over 3.5 million impressions and over 500 tweets per hour.

This is something we can do for the memory of Aaron Swartz, and to lead the way toward more access to the scientific process for everyone.

Now is the time to participate.

If you’re in the UK, write to @ukhouseoflords using this link as they are accepting comment on these issues over the next couple of weeks. If you’re in the United States, perhaps you can help launch a similar inquiry at the US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology by tweeting to @SciSpaceTechCmt.

For hackers, perhaps you can take all of the #pdftribute files and put them on a central web page. Maybe other journals will follow (or exceed!) JSTOR’s lead and give more open access. Whatever happens, let’s all be a part of it.

Please tweet your papers using #pdftribute!

@venturejessica, writing for @scicitizen, www.sciencecitizen.org.

See
http://pdftribute.psocha.co.uk/

On Aaron Swartz and his work:

http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=swartz

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/technology/aaron-swartz-internet-activist-dies-at-26.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartzs-crime/

http://soupsoup.tumblr.com/post/40373383323/official-statement-from-the-family-and-partner-of

http://rememberaaronsw.tumblr.com/

PS: Most of my own papers are already available (gratis) Open Access, see

http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4974627/

Update:
http://neuroconscience.com/2013/01/13/researchers-begin-posting-article-pdfs-to-twitter-in-pdftribute-to-aaron-swartz/

http://www.ilab.org/eng/documentation/989-recent_book_thefts_in_the_library_of_the_abbey_of_montecassino.html

The Italian Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association has published a list of books stolen from the Library of the Abbey of Montecassino. The library’s director, Dott. Francesco Rosa, has kindly given permission to inform all ILAB booksellers about this recent theft in detail.

The monastery was founded by Benedict of Nursia in 529. There he wrote the Benedictine Rule which became the founding principle for Western monasticism.

The list of stolen books comprises incunables and early printed books, many of them printed by Aldus Manutius in Venice, for example the works of Aristotle (1495) and Gaza’s “Introductionae grammatices libri quatuor” (1495), as well as Copernicus outstanding work "De reuolutionibus orbium coelestium" (1566), Aliaco’s “Concordantia astronomiae”, printed in Augsburg (Germany) in 1490, and Hartmann Schedel’s “Liber chronicarum” (Nuremberg 1493), from which woodcuts were stolen.

If you have any information about the books, please contact ALAI President Fabrizio Govi.


INCUNABLES

Aliaco, Petrus de
Concordantia astronomiae cum theologia...
Augustae vindelicorum, Herardus Ratdolt, 1490

Aristoteles
Opera
Venetiis, per Aldi Manucii, 1495

Gaza, Theodorus
Introductionae grammatices libri quator
Eiusdem de mensibus opusculum sanequam pulcrtum
Apollonii grammatici de constructione libri quator
Herodianus de numeris
Venetiis, Aldus Manutius, 1495

Lucretius Titus Carus
De Rerum Natura. Studio Hieronymi Avancii
Venetiis, apud Aldum, 1500

Regimontanus, Johannes
Astronomicon epitoma
Venetiis, M. Romanurum, 1496

Regimontanus, Johannes
Kalendarium magistri Joannis de Monteregio
Augustae Vindelicorum, E. Ratdolt, 1489


16th CENTURY

Platone
Apanta ta tou Platonos. Omnia Platonis opera
(Venetiis, in aedib. Aldi, et Andreae soceri , mense Septembri 1513)

Alberti, Leon Battista
Leonis Baptistae Alberti, viri doctissimi, de equo animante: ad Leonellum Ferrariensem principem libellus: Michaelis Martini Stellae cura ac studio inuentus, & nunc demum per eundem in lucem editus Basilea , 1556

Copernico, Niccolò
Nicolai Copernici Torinensis De reuolutionibus orbium coelestium, libri 6
Basileae, ex officina Henricpetrina, (1566 mense Septembri)

Finè Oronce
Quadratura circuli, tandem inventa et clarissime demonstarata
Lutetiae Parisiorum, apud S. Coliseum, 1544.

Finè Oronce
Aritmetica pratica, libris quator absolluta, omnibus qui mathematicas ipsas tractare volunt, perutilias, admodunque necessaria...
Parisiis, ex off. S. Colineai, 1542.


17th CENTURY

Fontana, Francesco
Novae coelestium terrestriumque rerum observationes et fotasse hactenus non vulgatae a F. Fontana Neapoli, apud Gassarum, 1646

Galilei, Galileo
Dialogo di G. Galilei dove si discorre sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo tolemaico e copernicano. Fiorenza, per Gio. Battista Landini, 1632

Galilei, Galileo
Le Operazioni del compasso geometrico, et militare. Di Galileo Galilei nobil fiorentino lettor delle matematiche nello studio di Padoua. Dedicato al sereniss. principe di Toscana d. Cosimo Medici In Padova, in casa dell'autore, per Pietro Marinelli, 1606


WOODCUTS TAKEN FROM THE FOLLOWING INCUNABLE

Schedel, Hartmann
Liber chronicarum
Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 1493
Carte (leaves) XII - XIII


Thanks to Falk Eisermann.