September 22, 2009

The Boston Library Consortium (BLC) has responded to the recent Google Book Settlement [pdf].

The BLC is an association of 19 academic and research libraries located in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire and includes the University of New Hampshire Library.

The BLC is the only academic library consortium that spoke out against the Google Book Settlement by sending a letter of concern to the Department of Justice, Antitrust division, noting that the Settlement will have a significant negative impact on libraries and to ask that the Settlement agreement be rejected. The letter notes that the Authors Guild, Inc and the Association of American Publishers, Inc., had opportunity to make significant contributions to the Settlement, but libraries did not.

From the letter:

The BLC believes that an educated society needs access to knowledge and that prices for that access must be reasonable. The Settlement Agreement as it currently stands does not adequately protect library purchasing of materials… [and] does not address the issue of open access, a priority for many academic institutions, especially with regard to materials that are out of print or “orphan” works.

For more information or to discuss this, please contact the Dean of the UNH Library, and Boston Library Consortium Executive Board Member, Sherry Vellucci.

May 1, 2009

When you publish, are you signing away your rights to use your own work? What happens to your data when your research project is finished? How does the “Harvard mandate” really work? What is an institutional repository and what kinds of things should it contain? What are some of the new models for publishing your research? What exactly does “open access” mean and why should you care?

These and many other questions were addressed April 8th at the Open Access Symposium when invited speakers from Harvard University, Boston University, and University of Massachusetts – Amherst discussed issues surrounding open access and the changing scholarly communication landscape. This event was co-sponsored by the University Library and the Faculty Senate Library Committee.

Video recordings of this event, along with speakers’ slides, are now available.

March 25, 2009

Faculty Open Access Symposium

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

1-5 pm

New England Center – Great Bay Room

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

When you publish, are you signing away your rights to use your own work? What happens to your data when your research project is finished? How does the “Harvard mandate” really work? What is an institutional repository and what kinds of things should it contain? What are some of the new models for publishing your research? What exactly does “open access” mean and why should you care?

These and many other questions will be addressed at the Open Access Symposium sponsored by the University Library and the Faculty Senate Library Committee. The goal of this half-day symposium is to increase awareness and to open discussion among UNH faculty of the issues surrounding open access and the changing scholarly communication landscape. Invited speakers will share their expert knowledge with us, followed by an open panel Q and A session during the closing reception.

A video recording of this event will be made available on the Library Website for later viewing.

The symposium will kick off a series of brown bag discussions on specific topics relating to open access, scholarly repositories and digital scholarship within specific disciplines.

Please visit our new Library Guide on Scholarly Communication and Open Access for more information on these topics and a schedule of symposium speakers: http://libraryguides.unh.edu/openaccess

If you have questions about this program, please contact Eleta Exline, Digital Collections Librarian.

August 29, 2006

Promoting Publication in Open Access Journals – UNH Library Progress Report and Proposal – May 24, 2006

Background:
The high inflation rate for library journal subscriptions continues with projections for next year at 7-9%. One of the options for reducing the impact of journal inflation on Library and University budgets is to promote publication in the growing number of open access (OA) journals.

“In its second year of publication, Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology had an impact factor of 13.9, making it the highest ranked general biology journal in the world, and five OA journals from BioMed Central ranked in the top five journals in their specialties. These successes are backed by research showing that OA articles generate between 25% and 250% more citations than non-OA articles in the same journal from the same year” (Library Journal, April 15, 2006).

Previous efforts by the Library to support open access:

• membership in SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) an organization started by the largest research libraries (ARL) to develop and promote alternatives to high priced commercial journals including open access journals and repositories. We were a founding member.
• UNH joined the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA), an active program of governmental, media, and public relations devoted to supporting the proposal by the NIH and the U.S. Congress to have taxpayer-funded biomedical research freely accessible in PubMed Central.
• adding records for open access titles from the Directory of Open Access Journals (2200 titles) to the Library’s online catalog.
• membership in the group of libraries supporting the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online reference work ($3000 over 3 years).

Reason for proposal:

• COLSA faculty member submitted paper to an open access title (Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology) and was charged the full article processing charge of $1345. Although grant funds can be used to cover this charge, institutional membership can provide a discounted rate for all submissions. By joining we could also encourage our faculty to participate in Open Access publication.

Proposal:

• UNH pay about $1846 annually for supporting membership in BioMed Central (BMC, 150 titles), $2000 annually for membership in the Public Library of Science (PLoS, 6 titles), and promote publication in their peer-reviewed journals. About half of the institutions in the Boston Library Consortium are members of BMC, one third members of PLoS.
• For the annual supporting membership at the lowest rate, UNH will receive a discount on article processing charges (15% BMC, 10% PLoS) and customized web pages which will serve as a permanent showcase of UNH published articles with links to OA full text.

Tie in to Academic Plan:

• “ Resourcefulness III. The University of New Hampshire will make efficient use of its human, information, financial, natural, and other resources … “
• “ d) Ensure the Library and other information resources and services are sufficient to support the University’s goals. “

For more information see the following websites:

• Public Library of Science
• Membership in PLoS and to see what the list of journal articles published by each institution see
• BioMed Central
• SPARC
• ATA
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy