[LIS-Forum] Writings of great Indians on an open access portal (fwd)

Tue May 13 10:42:22 IST 2008

Dear all:

To begin with, we planned to include in our IR all the newspaper 
clippings(1925s and onwards), which are very much in demand by historians 
of science. We scanned all the newspaper clippings in our archives 
(relating to Raman) and sought copyright clearance from all the 
newspapers, (which they gave readily) and posted them in our IR;

Then, we showcased all the research output of RRI from 1971 to date, 
keeping them open access wherever publishers have given permission to 
authors. The other articles are restricted access and one can e-mail us 
for a copy;

With the above exposure, we hit upon the idea of digitizing all of
C.V. Raman's collected works, published by the Indian Academy of 
Sciences in 6 volumes and followed the following norms:

- We first got the Indian Academy's permission to digitize and make pdfs 
and host in IR;

- Then we sought individual publisher's copyright permission for each 
article/s highlighting that papers published are of historical 
significance, which needs preservation and wide dissemination by placing 
in the IR;

- Many of the publishers gave copyright clearance with the result that 
we could host them in our IR and make them open access.

For carrying out such a stupendous task, one needs an open mind, sustained 
effort, dedication and team spirit.

Dr.Y.M.Patil
Librarian

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  Raman Research Institute Library,        Tel:  +91 80 2361 0122 Extn 250
  C V Raman Avenue, Sadashivanagar,        Fax:  +91 80 2361 0492
  Bangalore 560 080, India.                Email: library at rri.res.in
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On Mon, 12 May 2008, Subbiah Arunachalam wrote:

> Dear Sunder and Sathya:
> 
> Thanks very much for your mails. I am requesting Mr Patil of RRI to tell us
> the problems RRI faced in putting together of all of Raman's papers and how
> they overcame them.
> 
> I am also requesting Mr Pitroda to take up the matter of reducing the age of
> the copyright with the government.
> 
> Best wishes.
> 
> Arun
> 
> ==
> 
> On 5/12/08, sunder singh bg <bgs at nic.in> wrote:
>> 
>> Arun:
>> 
>> In a world of faster rates of obsolescence, copyrights need not remain
>> hindrance to OA. While copyrights and the Law are important,
>> can the Raman Research Institute or those who created the Raman Archive
>> like resources share their experiences?
>> 
>> regards,
>> ss/20080512/13:00
>> -----------------------------------
>> 
>> At 01:49 AM 5/12/2008, sathya wrote:
>> 
>> Arun
>> 
>> The simple solution lies in reducing the age of  copyright for all
>> literary works from the current 75 years or so to a more reasonable level
>> of  say less than 10 years. In case of  India it is some X number of  years
>> after the death of  the author!  Even patents have maximum of  14 years for
>> expiry date (Some countries, I think, have 17 years).
>> 
>> OA champions should indeed focus on getting the law makers attention to
>> the exceedingly long life for copyright. But any changes in the copyright
>> law at global level is a bigger battle!
>> 
>> *Sathya
>> *=======
>> | *N V Sathyanarayana *| Managing Director *|* *Informatics (India) Ltd* *
>> |* 194, R V Road, Basavanagudi *|* Bangalore 560 004. INDIA *|* *
>> ww.informindia.co.in* <http://www.informindia.co.in/> | Phone
>> +91-80-4038-7777 *|* FAX +91-80-4038-7600 *|*
>> 
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Subbiah Arunachalam [ 
>> mailto:subbiah.arunachalam at gmail.com<subbiah.arunachalam at gmail.com>]
>> 
>> *Sent:* Monday, May 12, 2008 5:08 AM
>> *To:* sam.pitroda at c-sam.com; ratnakar at informindia.co.in;
>> prgoswami at icssr.org; prgoswami at hotmail.com; seth at delhi.goethe.org;
>> hkkaul at delnet.ren.nic.in; bgs at nic.in; chadha at nic.in; naina at nic.in;
>> giridhar at chemeng.iisc.ernet.in
>> *Cc:* rrrlf at wb.nic.in; library at rri.res.in; ard at drtc.isibang.ac.in;
>> dasgupta_kalpana at hotmail.com; lis-forum at ncsi.iisc.ernet.in;
>> nandula.raghuram at gmail.com; ragh at ces.iisc.ernet.in; naglaxman at yahoo.com;
>> satyanarayan at gmail.com; sathya at informindia.co.in; balki at serc.iisc.ernet.in;
>> dbala at lvpei.org; mv at mbu.iisc.ernet.in; akolaskar at yahoo.com;
>> bviswanathan at gmail.com
>> *Subject:* Writings of great Indians on an open access portal
>> 
>> Friends:
>> 
>> In the US, the writings of the founding fathers of the country are being
>> brought into the public domain. Should we not do the same in India for the
>> writings of our great leaders (Gandhi, Nehru, Subash Chandra Bose, Patel,
>> Rajaji, Tagore and a large number of others)? We can do the same for our
>> great scientists (Srinivasa Ramanujan, J C Bose, S N Bose, M N Saha, K S
>> Krishnan, H J Bhahba and a number of others; Almost all papers of C V Raman
>> are already in the RRI archive).
>> 
>> Best wishes.
>> 
>> Arun
>> 
>> ==
>> 
>> *Plan for OA to American Founding Fathers' 
>> papers<http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/2008/05/plan-for-oa-to-american-founding.html>
>> *
>> National Archives Creates Plan for Online Access to Founding Fathers
>> Papers <http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2008/nr08-102.html>,
>> press release, May 7, 2008.
>> 
>> On Tuesday, May 6, 2008, Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein
>> submitted a report, entitled The Founders Online, to the Committees on
>> Appropriations of the U.S. Congress. This report is the National Archives
>> response to concerns raised by the Committees that the complete papers of
>> America's Founding Fathers are not available online. The Founders Online is
>> a plan for providing online access, within a reasonable timeframe, to
>> researchers, students and the general public. The report is available
>> electronically<http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/publications/founders-report.pdf>at 
>> the National Archives website.
>> 
>> In announcing the completion of the report, Professor Weinstein said, "We
>> feel this plan would provide scholars and the public access to the best
>> available versions of the complete papers; it would also protect the
>> longstanding interests of the publishers and host organizations which along
>> with the Federal government have invested great resources in the past four
>> decades. Most importantly, it would build a monument to the Founders of our
>> nation in their own words."
>> 
>> The National Archives received suggestions from the editors of the papers
>> of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and
>> George Washington, university publishers, and others in crafting a blueprint
>> for providing access to the already completed print editions and the raw
>> materials for the editions to come. If carried out, the plan ensures that
>> interested readers worldwide can see the work in progress with the already
>> complete editions accompanied by transcriptions of the papers yet to be
>> published. To hasten the transition process, the National Historical
>> Publications and Records Commission plans to invest $250,000 as a
>> demonstration pilot project.
>> 
>> The plan outlines three basic steps that remain: Digitizing the existing
>> 217 volumes and publishing the Papers on a single website to allow for
>> research and inquiry across America's Founding Era collections; Transcribing
>> and otherwise preparing for publishing on the web the remaining papers
>> (approximately 90,000 documents) and replacing these raw materials with
>> authoritative annotated versions as these are completed; and Creating an
>> independent oversight process to ensure that rigorous performance goals are
>> established and met by the parties carrying out all aspects of the work.
>> [image: Permanent link to this post]
>> <http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/2008/05/plan-for-oa-to-american-founding.html> 
>> Posted
>> by Gavin Baker at 5/10/2008 05:33:00 PM.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>

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