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Open-source science
by Mailing List Manager 25 Jul '06

25 Jul '06

Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:48:11 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Here is a news story from Peter Suber's blog on open source science (scientists in far off places collaborating using open source software). The Internet and the web provide new opportunities and we must take advantage of them. Arun ------ More on open-source science Sarah Everts, Open-Source Science, Chemical & Engineering News, July 24, 2006. Excerpt: Scientists from Sydney to San Francisco have created an online research collaboration to develop cures for tropical diseases, using the "open source" programming model that produced freeware like Linux and Firefox, the award-winning Web browser. The motivation is straightforward: Tropical diseases are low priority for big pharma because the return on drug development is so small. Patients in developing nations just don't have the financial ability to pay for patented drugs. The structure is radical: Online discussions will prioritize a list of experiments that anyone can take on. Raw data will be posted online and discussed. Members of the consortium will solicit further ideas and expertise, hoping the greater research community steps up to the plate. The group, which operates under an umbrella website called Synaptic Leap [blogged here 6/3/06], hopes that volunteered time, computer power, and reagents will eventually result in a portfolio of drug leads that will be made freely available for development. Currently, members of Synaptic Leap are describing projects online and asking others for help and advice. Participants in open-source collaborations give up their ability to patent discoveries by definition, because their data are public as soon as they are posted. But some argue that when it comes to neglected diseases, there's nothing to lose, because there was never any income to gain.... If the group publishes raw data online in the pursuit of virtuous science, does this negate the ability to publish in a peer-reviewed journal? Will scientists put their raw data, and possibly their reputations, online? These and other issues were raised by University of Sydney chemist Matthew H. Todd and his Synaptic Leap colleagues in a recent essay entitled "Open-Source Research - The Power of Us" (Aust. J. Chem. 2006, 59, 291).... When it comes to the issue of publishing, [Jean-Claude] Bradley [who blogs his research data] argues that open-source discussions are similar to conferences, where people openly discuss unpublished research and do not fear being denied the right to publish in a journal, assuming the science is good. Todd says the biggest misconception is that proponents of open source are antagonists of peer review. "I think the value of peer review is clear, and I would want to publish whatever work came out of the open-source research. The question is whether the journals will allow it."

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Free access to journals help Brazil do better in science
by Mailing List Manager 25 Jul '06

25 Jul '06

Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:35:08 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Friends: Brazilian scientists in 180 institutions get FREE ACCESS to more than 10,000 journals and 16 databases. That has helped Brazil do better in science. Please read the news item appended below and download the full article as well. Every developing country should find a way to provide such access to a very large number of journals and databases to its scientists and research students. In many developing countries people talk endlessly about digital libraries but in Brazil there was some action. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] -------------------------------- CAPES Journal Portal and the growth of Brazilian science The Brazilian scientific research growth by 19% in 2005, and by about 50% in the past five, was celebrated by the President of CAPES, Jorge Guimar�es, in a collective interview given in the SBPC annual meeting. Measured by the number of publications indexed in the Thomsom-ISI database, the Brazilian scientific production in 2005 represented 1.8% of the world production and ranks 17th in the list of countries. Access to scientific information is one of the main lines of action promoted by CAPES to support the development of graduate courses and scientific research in Brazil. The CAPES Journal Portal has been in continuous operation since its launching in 2000; it provides, to over 180 academic institutions, free access to more than 10 thousand titles of scientific journals and to a selection of 16 major international referential databases. Roughly 5.5 million articles were downloaded in the first 5 months in 2006. The crucial role played by the portal to promote democratic access to scientific information is publicly acknowledged by the UNIFESP and BIREME read the full article

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One laptop per child - India has reservations
by Mailing List Manager 25 Jul '06

25 Jul '06

Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 18:03:50 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> One laptop per kid not feasible for India! 20 July 2006 India's Education secretary Sudeep Banerjee's letter to his counterpart in the Planning Commission , Rajiv Ratna Shah, strongly disapproving of the 'One Laptop Per Child' idea USD100 each, cost to be borne by government for one million pieces floated by MIT, had instead asked the plan panel to invest similar money for universalisation of secondary education. Complete with technical problems pointed out by IIT, Madras, pedagogical suspicions raised by NCERT and first-hand experience of a senior HRD official, who found that the laptops have not even crossed the prototype stage, Banerjee had said OLPC may actually be detrimental to the growth of creative and analytical abilities of the child. The education secretary had said, if the Planning Commission has the kind of money that would be required for this scheme, it would be appropriate to utilise it for universalisation of secondary education, for which a concept paper has been lying with the PC for approval since November 2005, and on which, he also made a presentation in the Planning Commission, presided over by the deputy chairman. A detailed report by a senior HRD official, who attended the OLPC workshop in Massachusetts in May, found a series of faults with the concept and strongly recommended against accepting it. Since the laptops are in the prototype stage, the official found that hardware and functionality testing, using open-source Linux software, is still to begin. He also found out that due to the price of the battery and other hidden costs, the laptops might actually cost USD200. It also needs to be checked and certified in real time whether the connectivity distance between the local server and these laptops would be 0.5 km or 3 km as claimed. Another functional problem is that these laptops cannot be upgraded without changing the motherboard , which would entail an expenditure of nearly 40% of the total cost. The maintenance of these laptops will also require a substantial investment and reserve stocks. Source: Economic Times Why not examine the feasibility of using Simputers instead of the Negroponte computers?

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Researcher attitudes to open access
by Subbiah Arunachalam 25 Jul '06

25 Jul '06

Friends: Please spread the word. Pass this on to publishing scientists - professors, research associates, Ph D students, laboratory scientists and so on. The world should know that Indian (and developing country) researchers are overwhelmingly in favour of open access and free and unfettered flow of knowledge! Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ----------------------------------- Online survey of researcher attitudes toward OA A research team from University of Arkansas and the University of Munich has launched an online survey on Open Access & Science Publishing. You can take it, in English or German, until August 11. (Thanks to Yong Liu.) From the background page: Our research interest is with the attitudes toward and perceptions of Open Access of scientists in their double role as readers and authors of scientific publications.... Following a pragmatic as well as a theoretical approach, we are interested in identifying underlying barriers to the adoption of Open Access publications by individuals and in finding ways to overcome these barriers. At the same time we want to be alert to emerging business models for publishers and institutions in the future. More specifically, we are exploring: [1] Scientists' attitudes toward and current practices of Open Access, [2] Identification of the barriers that are mostly responsible for the relatively low diffusion and adoption of Open Access publications, [3] Identification of opportunities and ways to overcome these barriers, and [4] Research of country/subject specific-differences. Friends: Please spread the word. Pass this on to publishing scientists - professors, research associates, Ph D students, laboratory scientists and so on. The world should know that Indian (and developing country) researchers are overwhelmingly in favour of open access and free and unfettered flow of knowledge! Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ----------------------------------- Online survey of researcher attitudes toward OA A http://openaccess-study.com/en_authors.html research team from University of Arkansas and the University of Munich has launched an online survey on http://openaccess-study.com/ Open Access & Science Publishing . You can take it, in English or German, until August 11. (Thanks to Yong Liu.) From the http://openaccess-study.com/en_project.html background page : Our research interest is with the attitudes toward and perceptions of Open Access of scientists in their double role as readers and authors of scientific publications.... Following a pragmatic as well as a theoretical approach, we are interested in identifying underlying barriers to the adoption of Open Access publications by individuals and in finding ways to overcome these barriers. At the same time we want to be alert to emerging business models for publishers and institutions in the future. More specifically, we are exploring: [1] Scientists' attitudes toward and current practices of Open Access, [2] Identification of the barriers that are mostly responsible for the relatively low diffusion and adoption of Open Access publications, [3] Identification of opportunities and ways to overcome these barriers, and [4] Research of country/subject specific-differences.

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One laptop per child - India has reservations
by Subbiah Arunachalam 24 Jul '06

24 Jul '06

One laptop per kid not feasible for India! 20 July 2006 India's Education secretary Sudeep Banerjee's letter to his counterpart in the Planning Commission , Rajiv Ratna Shah, strongly disapproving of the 'One Laptop Per Child' idea USD100 each, cost to be borne by government for one million pieces floated by MIT, had instead asked the plan panel to invest similar money for universalisation of secondary education. Complete with technical problems pointed out by IIT, Madras, pedagogical suspicions raised by NCERT and first-hand experience of a senior HRD official, who found that the laptops have not even crossed the prototype stage, Banerjee had said OLPC may actually be detrimental to the growth of creative and analytical abilities of the child. The education secretary had said, if the Planning Commission has the kind of money that would be required for this scheme, it would be appropriate to utilise it for universalisation of secondary education, for which a concept paper has been lying with the PC for approval since November 2005, and on which, he also made a presentation in the Planning Commission, presided over by the deputy chairman. A detailed report by a senior HRD official, who attended the OLPC workshop in Massachusetts in May, found a series of faults with the concept and strongly recommended against accepting it. Since the laptops are in the prototype stage, the official found that hardware and functionality testing, using open-source Linux software, is still to begin. He also found out that due to the price of the battery and other hidden costs, the laptops might actually cost USD200. It also needs to be checked and certified in real time whether the connectivity distance between the local server and these laptops would be 0.5 km or 3 km as claimed. Another functional problem is that these laptops cannot be upgraded without changing the motherboard , which would entail an expenditure of nearly 40% of the total cost. The maintenance of these laptops will also require a substantial investment and reserve stocks. Source: Economic Times Why not examine the feasibility of using Simputers instead of the Negroponte computers? One laptop per kid not feasible for India! 20 July 2006 India's Education secretary Sudeep Banerjee's letter to his counterpart in the Planning Commission , Rajiv Ratna Shah, strongly disapproving of the 'One Laptop Per Child' idea USD100 each, cost to be borne by government for one million pieces floated by MIT, had instead asked the plan panel to invest similar money for universalisation of secondary education. Complete with technical problems pointed out by IIT, Madras, pedagogical suspicions raised by NCERT and first-hand experience of a senior HRD official, who found that the laptops have not even crossed the prototype stage, Banerjee had said OLPC may actually be detrimental to the growth of creative and analytical abilities of the child. The education secretary had said, if the Planning Commission has the kind of money that would be required for this scheme, it would be appropriate to utilise it for universalisation of secondary education, for which a concept paper has been lying with the PC for approval since November 2005, and on which, he also made a presentation in the Planning Commission, presided over by the deputy chairman. A detailed report by a senior HRD official, who attended the OLPC workshop in Massachusetts in May, found a series of faults with the concept and strongly recommended against accepting it. Since the laptops are in the prototype stage, the official found that hardware and functionality testing, using open-source Linux software, is still to begin. He also found out that due to the price of the battery and other hidden costs, the laptops might actually cost USD200. It also needs to be checked and certified in real time whether the connectivity distance between the local server and these laptops would be 0.5 km or 3 km as claimed. Another functional problem is that these laptops cannot be upgraded without changing the motherboard , which would entail an expenditure of nearly 40% of the total cost. The maintenance of these laptops will also require a substantial investment and reserve stocks. Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshowcnews/1779354.cms Economic Times Why not examine the feasibility of using Simputers instead of the Negroponte computers?

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St Agnes College (Mangalore) Information Centre: Website hosted
by Gopakumar Velayudhanpillai 24 Jul '06

24 Jul '06

As requested by the Librarian of St Agnes College, Mangalore I am providing the following information, which was published in English daily for information of Lis-forum members. Please visit the website and inform your suggestions to the Librarian. St Agnes College Information Centre: Website hosted. St Agnes College Library, Mangalore has provided a benchmark for undergraduate libraries by hosting its own Information Centre Website. The features of the library webpage includes the listing of books,110 journals, 140 CDS and regular intake of magazines, and news paper clippings on various subjects can now be accessed on the World Wide Web. St.Agnes College is the first in Karnataka among undergraduate Information Centres to develop their own Website providing not only the list of the library holdings but a catalogue and book database on a Website. So for St. Agnes College having its own library website has a dual function; its catalogues are available internally, but outsiders can access the Website and can become at a later stage on line members if the modalities are worked out. The purpose of this is to keep in step with the staggering possibilities of internet and Web connectivity, so that when digitization becomes economically feasible, the library can take advantage of it. A right direction is what this recent advance means. You are most welcome to visit the site on the following URL. http://www.stagnescollege.org/library/heading.htm For any query regarding the website please contact me through bk.vishala(a)gmail.com. VISHALA.B.K. Sr.Librarian, St.Agnes College Mangalore-575002 DK Karnataka Gopakumar.V Research Scholar Department of Library & Information Science Mangalore University Mangalagangotri gopakumar.v(a)rediffmail.com Mobile No: 09447056713 As requested by the Librarian of St Agnes College, Mangalore I am providing the following information, which was published in English daily for information of Lis-forum members. Please visit the website and inform your suggestions to the Librarian. St Agnes College Information Centre: Website hosted. St Agnes College Library, Mangalore has provided a benchmark for undergraduate libraries by hosting its own Information Centre Website. The features of the library webpage includes the listing of books,110 journals, 140 CDS and regular intake of magazines, and news paper clippings on various subjects can now be accessed on the World Wide Web. St.Agnes College is the first in Karnataka among undergraduate Information Centres to develop their own Website providing not only the list of the library holdings but a catalogue and book database on a Website. So for St. Agnes College having its own library website has a dual function; its catalogues are available internally, but outsiders can access the Website and can become at a later stage on line members if the modalities are worked out. The purpose of this is to keep in step with the staggering possibilities of internet and Web connectivity, so that when digitization becomes economically feasible, the library can take advantage of it. A right direction is what this recent advance means. You are most welcome to visit the site on the following URL. http://www.stagnescollege.org/library/heading.htm For any query regarding the website please contact me through bk.vishala(a)gmail.com. VISHALA.B.K. Sr.Librarian, St.Agnes College Mangalore-575002 DK Karnataka Gopakumar.V Research Scholar Department of Library & Information Science Mangalore University Mangalagangotri gopakumar.v(a)rediffmail.com Mobile No: 09447056713 http://adworks.rediff.com/cgi-bin/AdWorks/sigclick.cgi/www.rediff.com/signa… http://adworks.rediff.com/cgi-bin/AdWorks/sigimpress.cgi/www.rediff.com/sig…

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Manipur University Recruitments
by rupesh kumar 22 Jul '06

22 Jul '06

Dear All, Manipur University calls for various faculty positions (Professors, Readers, Lecturers) in various subjects including Library and Information Science. The Last Date for submission of applications extended till 10th August 2006. Further Details on the University website: http://www.manipuruniv.ac.in/recruitment/recruitment.htm Regards, Rupesh Kumar A Department of Library & Information Science Bangalore University a_rupeshkumar(a)yahoo.com http://lislog.blogspot.com http://a.rupeshkumar.googlepages.com --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail Beta. Manipur University calls for various faculty positions (Professors, Readers, Lecturers) in various subjects including Library and Information Science. The Last Date for submission of applications extended till 10th August 2006. Further Details on the University website: http://www.manipuruniv.ac.in/recruitment/recruitment.htm http://www.manipuruniv.ac.in/recruitment/recruitment.htm Regards, Rupesh Kumar A Department of Library & Information Science Bangalore University mailto:a_rupeshkumar@yahoo.com a_rupeshkumar(a)yahoo.com http://lislog.blogspot.com http://lislog.blogspot.com http://a.rupeshkumar.googlepages.com http://a.rupeshkumar.googlepages.com Do you Yahoo!? Get on board. http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=40791/*http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/handr… You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail Beta.

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OA in India vs. OA in the world
by Subbiah Arunachalam 22 Jul '06

22 Jul '06

Friends: I am reproducing below a short but very important news item from Peter Suber's blog. It talks about the rapid growth of open access archiving. In less than three weeks one million records were added to the OAISter collection. Currently there are more than 8.75 million records from 668 institutions. But what is the share of India? Less than 20,000 papers, may be [Can someone at OAIster give me the right figure please?]. We keep cribbing about our papers not being read or cited, but we do not take the simple step of making our papers widely known. Both Dr D K Sahu and Dr Murari Tapaswi have shown that making papers - papers by Indian authors - available via open access leads to a manifold increase in the numbers of their downloads and viewing. Dr Sahu has also shown that Indian papers on OA are cited far more often than those which are available only via toll-access journals. Others like Alma Swan and Stevan harnad and his colleagues at Southampton and elsewhere have shown that OA papers are read and cited far more often than non-OA papers. And yet Indian scientists and librarians are reluctant to set up open access archives. Of course there are exceptions. Matscience set up a mirror site for the well-known arXiv (the central archive for many areas of physics, astrophysics, mathematical biology, etc.) many years ago. IISc in Bangalore was the first institution in India to set up an institutional archive. Three CSIR labs (NCL, NAL and NIO) have their own archives, as do RRL, IIA, IIMK, NIT-R, and a few others. Incidentally, NIT-R has a mandate on open access archiving. But for a country of more than a billion people and hundreds of universities and research labs what we have done so far is miniscule compare to what we should have done. Subbiah Arunachalam -------------------------------- Rapid new growth at OAIster Heather Morrison, Dramatic Growth: July 20th Brief Update, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, July 21, 2006. Excerpt: On June 30th, I reported that OAIster had grown by more than half a million records in the previous quarter, for a total of 7.6 million records, and predicted that OAIster would exceed a billion records sometime in 2007. The pace of growth in the past few weeks has been dramatic indeed - OAIster now lists 8,754,367 records from 668 institutions - growth of more than a million records in less than 3 weeks. At this rate, an OAIster search will pass the billion mark much, much sooner than expected, likely in 2006. The list of new institutions harvested recently is long, and impressive. Friends: I am reproducing below a short but very important news item from Peter Suber's blog. It talks about the rapid growth of open access archiving. In less than three weeks one million records were added to the OAISter collection. Currently there are more than 8.75 million records from 668 institutions. But what is the share of India? Less than 20,000 papers, may be [Can someone at OAIster give me the right figure please?]. We keep cribbing about our papers not being read or cited, but we do not take the simple step of making our papers widely known. Both Dr D K Sahu and Dr Murari Tapaswi have shown that making papers - papers by Indian authors - available via open access leads to a manifold increase in the numbers of their downloads and viewing. Dr Sahu has also shown that Indian papers on OA are cited far more often than those which are available only via toll-access journals. Others like Alma Swan and Stevan harnad and his colleagues at Southampton and elsewhere have shown that OA papers are read and cited far more often than non-OA papers. And yet Indian scientists and librarians are reluctant to set up open access archives. Of course there are exceptions. Matscience set up a mirror site for the well-known arXiv (the central archive for many areas of physics, astrophysics, mathematical biology, etc.) many years ago. IISc in Bangalore was the first institution in India to set up an institutional archive. Three CSIR labs (NCL, NAL and NIO) have their own archives, as do RRL, IIA, IIMK, NIT-R, and a few others. Incidentally, NIT-R has a mandate on open access archiving. But for a country of more than a billion people and hundreds of universities and research labs what we have done so far is miniscule compare to what we should have done. Subbiah Arunachalam -------------------------------- Rapid new growth at OAIster Heather Morrison, http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2006/07/dramatic-growth-july-20th-brief… Dramatic Growth: July 20th Brief Update , Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics , July 21, 2006. Excerpt: On June 30th, I reported that http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/ OAIster had grown by more than half a million records in the previous quarter, for a total of 7.6 million records, and predicted that OAIster would exceed a billion records sometime in 2007. The pace of growth in the past few weeks has been dramatic indeed - OAIster now lists 8,754,367 records from 668 institutions - growth of more than a million records in less than 3 weeks. At this rate, an OAIster search will pass the billion mark much, much sooner than expected, likely in 2006. The list of new institutions harvested recently is long, and impressive.

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Library associations back open access
by Subbiah Arunachalam 22 Jul '06

22 Jul '06

Eight major North American Library Associations representing a vast majority of American and Canadian librarians are supporting open access. When will the Indian librarians lend their support to open access? When will they persuade the government - UGC, DST, DBT, CSIR, and other funding agencies and apex bodies - to mandate open access self-archiving of all publicly funded research? Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ---------------------------------- From Peter Suber's blog Library groups support FRPAA Eight major North American library associations have released their July 12 letter to Sen. Susan Collins in support of FRPAA. The letter will soon be online here and here. Meantime I'm quoting from a copy that John Ober sent as an attachment to the ScholComm list. Excerpt: We write in strong support of the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (S. 2695)....S. 2695 would promote widespread, affordable, and effective dissemination of scientific and scholarly research results. For this reason, we encourage the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs to conduct hearings on S. 2695. Federally funded research is a public resource collected at public expense. Importantly, increased access to this research accelerates the pace of discovery and innovation and fosters economic growth. It is critical that this new research be readily available to physicians, researchers, and members of the public, including those who are unaffiliated with or working in locations remote from libraries that subscribe to in increasingly expensive journals and databases developed from federally funded research. Indeed, results of a recent Harris Interactive poll show that the majority of U.S. adults believe that federally funded research findings should be available for free to doctors and the general public.... [T]he Internet offers an unprecedented and cost-effective means to accelerate scientific advancement. S. 2695 recognizes this potential and helps to facilitate its realization. Its key beneficiaries include: a.. Scientists and scholars, whose research will be more broadly read and who will have fewer barriers to obtaining the research they need. b.. Funders, who will gain from accelerated discovery, facilitation of interdisciplinary research methodologies, preservation of vital research findings, and an improved capacity to manage their research portfolios. c.. Taxpayers, who will obtain economic and social benefits from the leveraging of their investment in scientific research through effects such as enhanced technology transfer, broader application of research to health care provision, and more informed policy development.... This legislation is not a threat to journals and the peer review process. The Federal Research Public Access Act contains two key provisions that protect journals and the peer review process: a.. A delay of up to six months in providing access to articles via the public archive (versus immediate access for journal readers). b.. Inclusion in the public archive of the author's final manuscript rather than the publisher's formatted, paginated version preferred for citation purposes. In some disciplines, freely accessible online archives have proven to supplement journal readership, not replace it. In physics, for example.... If Congress were to pass S. 2695, the most significant day-to-day effect on investigators would be improved access to research and increased impact for their own work. A growing number of studies demonstrate that research is cited more often when it is openly accessible on the Web. The process by which investigators deposit their work is expected to be relatively simple. NIH, for example, estimates that submitting a manuscript to their archive usually takes an investigator just 3-10 minutes. This legislation will not take funding away from research to any material extent. The NIH, for example, estimates that the cost of its public access program would be $3.5 million if 100% of the 65,000 eligible manuscripts were deposited annually. That is a tiny fraction (about 0.01%) of the agency's $28 billion budget. It is also a small fraction of the $30 million per year the agency spends on page charges and other subsidies to subscription-based journals.... The organizations signing the letter are the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), American Library Association (ALA), Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL), Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Medical Library Association (MLA), and the Special Libraries Association (SLA), and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). Eight major North American Library Associations representing a vast majority of American and Canadian librarians are supporting open access. When will the Indian librarians lend their support to open access? When will they persuade the government - UGC, DST, DBT, CSIR, and other funding agencies and apex bodies - to mandate open access self-archiving of all publicly funded research? Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ---------------------------------- From Peter Suber's blog Library groups support FRPAA Eight major North American library associations have released their July 12 letter to Sen. Susan Collins in support of http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.02695: FRPAA . The letter will soon be online http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/scholarlycomm/action.htm here and http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/washingtonwatch/washingtonwatch.htm#… here . Meantime I'm quoting from a copy that John Ober sent as an attachment to the http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/scholarlycomm/scholcommdiscussion.htm ScholComm list. Excerpt: We write in strong support of the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (S. 2695)....S. 2695 would promote widespread, affordable, and effective dissemination of scientific and scholarly research results. For this reason, we encourage the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs to conduct hearings on S. 2695. Federally funded research is a public resource collected at public expense. Importantly, increased access to this research accelerates the pace of discovery and innovation and fosters economic growth. It is critical that this new research be readily available to physicians, researchers, and members of the public, including those who are unaffiliated with or working in locations remote from libraries that subscribe to in increasingly expensive journals and databases developed from federally funded research. Indeed, results of a recent Harris Interactive poll show that the majority of U.S. adults believe that federally funded research findings should be available for free to doctors and the general public.... [T]he Internet offers an unprecedented and cost-effective means to accelerate scientific advancement. S. 2695 recognizes this potential and helps to facilitate its realization. Its key beneficiaries include: Scientists and scholars, whose research will be more broadly read and who will have fewer barriers to obtaining the research they need. Funders, who will gain from accelerated discovery, facilitation of interdisciplinary research methodologies, preservation of vital research findings, and an improved capacity to manage their research portfolios. Taxpayers, who will obtain economic and social benefits from the leveraging of their investment in scientific research through effects such as enhanced technology transfer, broader application of research to health care provision, and more informed policy development.... This legislation is not a threat to journals and the peer review process. The Federal Research Public Access Act contains two key provisions that protect journals and the peer review process: A delay of up to six months in providing access to articles via the public archive (versus immediate access for journal readers). Inclusion in the public archive of the authors final manuscript rather than the publishers formatted, paginated version preferred for citation purposes. In some disciplines, freely accessible online archives have proven to supplement journal readership, not replace it. In physics, for example.... If Congress were to pass S. 2695, the most significant day-to-day effect on investigators would be improved access to research and increased impact for their own work. A growing number of studies demonstrate that research is cited more often when it is openly accessible on the Web. The process by which investigators deposit their work is expected to be relatively simple. NIH, for example, estimates that submitting a manuscript to their archive usually takes an investigator just 310 minutes. This legislation will not take funding away from research to any material extent. The NIH, for example, estimates that the cost of its public access program would be $3.5 million if 100% of the 65,000 eligible manuscripts were deposited annually. That is a tiny fraction (about 0.01%) of the agency's $28 billion budget. It is also a small fraction of the $30 million per year the agency spends on page charges and other subsidies to subscription-based journals.... The organizations signing the letter are the American Association of Law Libraries ( http://www.aallnet.org/ AALL ), American Library Association ( http://www.ala.org/ ALA ), Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries ( http://www.aahsl.org/ AAHSL ), Association of College & Research Libraries ( http://www.ala.org/acrl/ ACRL ), Association of Research Libraries ( http://www.arl.org/ ARL ), Medical Library Association ( http://www.mlanet.org/ MLA ), and the Special Libraries Association ( http://www.sla.org/ SLA ), and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition ( http://www.arl.org/sparc/ SPARC ).

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Congrats to Stevan harnad
by Subbiah Arunachalam 22 Jul '06

22 Jul '06

Friends: Stevan Harnad has won an award for the best poem in English in a competition (for poems on science and technology) held at the recently held Euroscience Oen Forum, Munich. Here is the poem. Publish or Perish As Science is mere structured common sense (http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAA38.htm) her means but trial-and-error made intense, the only virtue setting her apart, and raising her above (some think) mere Art, Is her convergence ever on consensus: collective, self-corrective her defenses. A flagellant, she boldly does defy Reality her schemes to falsify. And yet this noble jousting were in vain, and all this pain would yield no grain of gain if Science were content, a shrinking violet, her works from all the world 'ere to keep private. Instead, performance public and artistic, restraining all propensities autistic, perhaps less out of error-making dread, than banal need to earn her daily bread. For showbiz being what it is today, work's not enough, you've got to make it pay. What ratings, sweeps and polls count for our actors, no less than our elected benefactors, for Science the commensurate equation is not just publication but citation. The more your work is accessed, read and used, the higher then is reckoned its just dues. Sounds crass, but there may be some consolation, where there's still some residual motivation to make a difference, not just make a fee (http://openaccess.eprints.org/) the World Wide Web at last can make Science free. Stevan donated the 300 Euro he won to the Alliance for Taxpayer Access in the US so that, in his words "in a small way Euroscience (thanks to the Andrea von Braun Foundation) can lend a hand to promoting the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) in the United States. Subbiah Arunachalam Friends: Stevan Harnad has won an award for the best poem in English in a competition (for poems on science and technology) held at the recently held Euroscience Oen Forum, Munich. Here is the poem. Publish or Perish As Science is mere structured common sense ( http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAA38.htm http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAA38.htm ), her means but trial-and-error made intense, the only virtue setting her apart, and raising her above (some think) mere Art, Is her convergence ever on consensus: collective, self-corrective her defenses. A flagellant, she boldly does defy Reality her schemes to falsify. And yet this noble jousting were in vain, and all this pain would yield no grain of gain if Science were content, a shrinking violet, her works from all the world 'ere to keep private. Instead, performance public and artistic, restraining all propensities autistic, perhaps less out of error-making dread, than banal need to earn her daily bread. For showbiz being what it is today, work's not enough, you've got to make it pay. What ratings, sweeps and polls count for our actors, no less than our elected benefactors, for Science the commensurate equation is not just publication but citation. The more your work is accessed, read and used, the higher then is reckoned its just dues. Sounds crass, but there may be some consolation, where there's still some residual motivation to make a difference, not just make a fee ( http://openaccess.eprints.org/ http://openaccess.eprints.org/ ): the World Wide Web at last can make Science free. Stevan donated the 300 Euro he won to the Alliance for Taxpayer Access in the US so that, in his words "in a small way Euroscience (thanks to the Andrea von Braun Foundation) can lend a hand to promoting the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) in the United States. Subbiah Arunachalam

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