http://www.gavinbaker.com A Journal of Insignificant Inquiry Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:45:26 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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 last year). The inaugural issue had been released, according to ... http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/09/23/ludicrously-closed-access-or-how-to-alienate-readers-and-look-foolish/ This week, the World Intellectual Property Organization named a new director general, Francis Gurry of Australia. In his acceptance speech, Gurry called for the world "IP" system to serve the goals of access to knowledge and information equity. He also commended the goals of the Development Agenda. Both are welcome ... http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/09/23/open-access-and-the-new-wipo-director/ ...after a fashion. They use a photo of me around the one minute mark in today's video, during a discussion of DRM. The photo's from the DRM protests at the Students for Free Culture conference in Boston last year. I'm photogenic enough to be Generic Protester, then. I forget who took ... http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/09/08/im-on-rocketboom/ Benchmarks and peer comparison are handy motivators. So I'm interested in the new tool released by open access journal publisher Hindawi as part of its new institutional membership program. The new tool allows anyone to see at a glance the entirety of an institution's affiliates' participation with Hindawi journals. See, e.g., ... http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/08/25/benchmarking-institutonal-participation-in-open-access/ Simmons College's Graduate School of Library and Information Science has posted a podcast of my presentation there in May on students and open access. (Thanks to Peter for noticing it, even when the Google Alert on my name didn't.) http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/08/16/podcast-of-my-talk-at-simmons-library-school/ 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 problem is. So let's be clear: Researchers want to publish their ... http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/08/02/authors-rights-lets-be-clear-on-the-problem/ I've been an advocate for freedom in Web services for, well, years now. So I was happy to learn of the launch of open microblogging service identi.ca recently, and of autonomo.us and its Franklin Street Statement on Freedom and Network Services. Pleasantly, the autonomo.us wiki already links to my article ... http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/07/16/towards-autonomy/ Check out the post at the SFLC blog. I've said for some time that free culture is a matter of social responsibility -- I think it's a good frame for the issue, and helps people understand why it matters. http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/06/30/foss-and-socially-responsible-investing/ I'm looking to get out of consulting and into a full time office environment. (It gets lonely at home.) I'm interested in opportunities in organizing, outreach, advocacy, or public education on issues in information policy, tech policy, or access to knowledge. I'm willing to relocate. If you know of such ... http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/06/26/hire-me/ Three mathematics societies have issued a report on scientometrics, cautioning against overreliance on the impact factor. Scientometrics is a very relevant topic to open access: the potential impacts on tenure, funding, and the like seem never to be far from an author's mind when considering publishing activities. As long as ... http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/06/21/scientometrics-and-oa/