Category Archives: Publishing

On jurisdiction; or, letting copyright trump science

Posted on 8 March 2009 by Gavin Baker

Rep. John Conyers has released his response to the widely-circulated open letter by Lawrence Lessig and Michael Eisen criticizing Conyers’ anti-open access bill, H.R. 801. Eisen, Steven Harnad, and Peter Suber have already responded ably to Conyers’ response. There’s one … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Copyright, Creative Commons, Education, Open access, Politics, Publishing, Science | Leave a comment

Liveblog: BRDI: Author Deposit Mandates for Federal Research Grantees

Posted on 29 January 2009 by Gavin Baker

I’m liveblogging the first meeting of the new Board on Research Data and Information today and tomorrow, and will be liveblogging. Standard liveblogging disclaimers apply. The presentation slides are on the meeting site. Because the slides are online, I’ll focus … Continue reading →

Posted in Open access, Publishing, Science | Tagged | 1 Comment

How to negotiate a Creative Commons license in a work contract

Posted on 14 January 2009 by Gavin Baker

Michael Mandiberg has written a piece, HOWTO Negotiate a Creative Commons License: Ten Steps, targeted at authors working with commercial publishers. I’ve encountered a similar challenge in a different context: work contracts. Even friendly organizations tend to use legal boilerplate … Continue reading →

Posted in Copyright, Creative Commons, Publishing | 4 Comments

Liveblog: TACD IP: Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge

Posted on 13 January 2009 by Gavin Baker

The next panel is on Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge. First is Anne-Catherine Lorrain of Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue. Interoperability should be a public principle. ISP liability: Pressure for filtering solutions (consumer surveillance). Government procurement should require open standards. … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Copyright, Education, Open education, Open formats, Publishing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Submission fees: a means of defraying costs for OA journals?

Posted on 16 October 2008 by Gavin Baker

I was struck by a recent report on a talk by Harold Varmus that The [PLoS] peer reviewed journals now had high reputations, and rejected some 90% of submissions, but had needed to raise fees beyond his forecast of five … Continue reading →

Posted in Open access, Publishing | 4 Comments

Reflecting on Open Access Day

Posted on 15 October 2008 by Gavin Baker

Yesterday was the first Open Access Day — and what a day it was. What follows are my personal reflections. I wasn’t able to be as involved with OA Day as I would have liked, due to a variety of … Continue reading →

Posted in Libraries, Open access, Personal, Publishing, Science, Students for Free Culture | Leave a comment

Ludicrously closed access; or how to alienate readers and look foolish

Posted on 23 September 2008 by Gavin Baker

It started with a post the liblicense mailing list, announcing a new journal entitled the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship. The journal, the post said, was published by the Haworth Press (a subsidiary of Taylor & Francis since its acquisition … Continue reading →

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Author’s rights: let’s be clear on the problem

Posted on 2 August 2008 by Gavin Baker

There are a number of available remedies (e.g. 1, 2, 3) to the problems posed by authors signing away their copyright to academic journals. But the thicket of solutions and the surrounding rhetoric can sometimes muddy up what the real … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Copyright, Creative Commons, Licenses, Open access, Publishing | Leave a comment