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Comments are expected from all the active LIS forum members on this suggestion.(NET/SET)
by ishwar bandi 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

LISDWD(a)yahoogroups.co.in, lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Dear professionals, I read many responses and comments regarding the scraping up of NET/SET decided by UGC, before to this decision I red one article in CURRENT SCIENCE Journal illuminated about the affect of the NET/SET compulsion on University out put i.e. Research. See UGC decision has taken by considering many more subjects and aspects. A proper guideline regarding the selection for the Lectureship is not yet formally decided by UGC. It is too early to draw a conclusion whether this decision is a correct or not. Now we see about the QUALITY, many people have raised a question about the NET/SET candidates have better QUALITY than non NET/SET candidates. I feel UGC Exam gives QUALIFICATION not QUALITY. As we are thinking only about the LIS whether there was no QUALITY before 1992 when there was no NET/SET compulsion for teaching. Most of we have studied under non NET/SET teachers then have you questioned about their QUALITY? In total I want to say that NET/SET is not only for the QUALITY but also to promote the research work, which is not happening. One more thing I wanted to tell you that not even one Indian University is ranked in first 500 universities at International level, why it is so? In subjects like Egg. can survive and do better without GATE then is it not possible in other subjects. Have you all observed the NET/SET clearing candidates are fresher students who have little practical knowledge? Hence I suggest UGC can conduct these qualifying exams categorically. Category may be on the basis of experience; Without experience 1 to 3 years experience 3 to 5 years experience 5 to 7 years experience 7 to 10 years experience 10 to 15 years experience 15 to 20 years experience In this type you can consider many other aspects to test the candidates subject knowledge. Because fresher may get more time to prepare and may not be having work pressers and so many other things which are in fever to them. Now the answers expecting in the exam are of text book oriented and you cannot expect a 5 to 10 and more years experience persons answers will compete the fresh candidates answers as far as the text book knowledge is concerned. Comments are expected from all the active LIS forum members on this suggestion. Thanking you Ishwar Bandi ********************************** Mr.Ishappa Bandi Librarian Don Bosco Institute of Technology Premier Automobile Road Kurla(w),Mumbai-400 070 Phone:022-25040508 Ext:117 www.donboscoit.ac.in icbandi(a)yahoo.co.in --------------------------------- Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new Click here Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger Download now LISDWD(a)yahoogroups.co.in, lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Dear professionals, I read many responses and comments regarding the scraping up of NET/SET decided by UGC, before to this decision I red one article in CURRENT SCIENCE Journal illuminated about the affect of the NET/SET compulsion on University out put i.e. Research. See UGC decision has taken by considering many more subjects and aspects. A proper guideline regarding the selection for the Lectureship is not yet formally decided by UGC. It is too early to draw a conclusion whether this decision is a correct or not. Now we see about the QUALITY, many people have raised a question about the NET/SET candidates have better QUALITY than non NET/SET candidates. I feel UGC Exam gives QUALIFICATION not QUALITY. As we are thinking only about the LIS whether there was no QUALITY before 1992 when there was no NET/SET compulsion for teaching. Most of we have studied under non NET/SET teachers then have you questioned about their QUALITY? In total I want to say that NET/SET is not only for the QUALITY but also to promote the research work, which is not happening. One more thing I wanted to tell you that not even one Indian University is ranked in first 500 universities at International level, why it is so? In subjects like Egg. can survive and do better without GATE then is it not possible in other subjects. Have you all observed the NET/SET clearing candidates are fresher students who have little practical knowledge? Hence I suggest UGC can conduct these qualifying exams categorically. Category may be on the basis of experience; Without experience 1 to 3 years experience 3 to 5 years experience 5 to 7 years experience 7 to 10 years experience 10 to 15 years experience 15 to 20 years experience In this type you can consider many other aspects to test the candidates subject knowledge. Because fresher may get more time to prepare and may not be having work pressers and so many other things which are in fever to them. Now the answers expecting in the exam are of text book oriented and you cannot expect a 5 to 10 and more years experience persons answers will compete the fresh candidates answers as far as the text book knowledge is concerned. Comments are expected from all the active LIS forum members on this suggestion. Thanking you Ishwar Bandi ********************************** Mr.Ishappa Bandi Librarian Don Bosco Institute of Technology Premier Automobile Road Kurla(w),Mumbai-400 070 Phone:022-25040508 Ext:117 http://www.donboscoit.ac.in/ www.donboscoit.ac.in mailto:icbandi@yahoo.co.in icbandi(a)yahoo.co.in mailto:i@rediffmail.com Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/mailanswersshare/*http://in.answers.yahoo.co… Click here Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/freesms/*http://messenger.yahoo.com/download… Download now

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History of Nobel unravelled at Vishveshwariah Museum
by vasanth raj 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

Dear Sir/Madam, Rare opportunity to see the works of great scientists and Nobel Laureates at Vishveshwariah Museum in Bangalore. Further Information http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may302006/city1858142006529.asp http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may292006/update945282006529.asp Your Sincerely Vasantha Raju N Send instant messages to your online friends http://in.messenger.yahoo.com

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Information for stock verification
by Ajay Kumar Sharma 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

Dear Professionals I have approx. 50,000 Books and i want to stock verification of books. Please send me most appropriate methods which will not create hinderence in my library services. Ur Ajay Kumar Sharma Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (Library) <http://www.idsa.in/> Block No. 3, Old JNU Campus, New Delhi-110067 Dear Professionals I have approx. 50,000 Books and i want to stock verification of books. Please send me most appropriate methods which will not create hinderence in my library services. Ur Ajay Kumar Sharma http://www.idsa.in/ Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (Library) Block No. 3, Old JNU Campus, New Delhi-110067

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Rquest for Articles
by veena bhat 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

Dear All, Could you please send the following article in E-Format? It is very urgent for one of our user. 1. Abernathy, William J., and Kenneth Wayne.1974. Limits to the Learning Curve. 2. Andrews, Kenneth R. 1971. The concept of Corporate Strategy. Homewood, IL: Irwin. Thanking You, Best Regards, Veena Bhat IIIT, Pune __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com Dear All, Could you please send the following article in E-Format? It is very urgent for one of our user. 1. Abernathy, William J., and Kenneth Wayne.1974. Limits to the Learning Curve. 2. Andrews, Kenneth R. 1971. The concept of Corporate Strategy. Homewood, IL: Irwin. Thanking You, Best Regards, Veena Bhat IIIT, Pune __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Please review our article titled "Open Access and institutional repositories - a developing country perspective: a case study of India"
by Puna Das 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

Dear Member Please review our article titled "Open Access and institutional repositories - a developing country perspective: a case study of India" and give your valuable comments. If this article does not include your OA/ IR initiatives accessible worldwide, please provide details to the undersigned. Yours sincerely Anup Kumar Das World Library and Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference and Council "Libraries: Dynamic Engines for the Knowledge and Information Society" 20-24 August 2006, Seoul, Korea Open Access and institutional repositories - a developing country perspective: a case study of India S.B. GHOSH (Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India) and ANUP KUMAR DAS (Jadavpur University, New Delhi, India) http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla72/papers/157-Ghosh_Das-en.pdf ____________________________________________________ 1st International Conference on Digital Information Management (ICDIM 2006) December 06-08, 2006; Bangalore, India http://www.icdim.org ____________________________________________________ National Conference on Information Management in Digital Libraries (NCIMDiL) August 02-04, 2006; IIT, Kharagpur, India http://www.library.iitkgp.ernet.in/NCIMDiL/ncimdil.htm ____________________________________________________ International Conference on Computing: Theory and Applications March 5 - 7, 2007 Venue: Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India Website: http://www.isical.ac.in/~ccsd_platinum/ ____________________________________________________ Indo German e-Gurukul on Digital Libraries (An joint e-learning initiative of DRTC, Bangalore & MMB, New Delhi using Moodle software) http://drtc.isibang.ac.in/mmb/ ___________________________________________________ EU Scholarship Scholarship Program for India worth 33 Million Euro How to Apply http://www.science-circle.org/EU_IN_Scholarships.asp ____________________________________________________ Send instant messages to your online friends http://in.messenger.yahoo.com

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stock verification
by gayathri sen 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

Dear friend, We have around 42,000 plus books and we follow the following steps which seems to be quite efficient. Most of the collection is bar coded. We make 3 groups of 3 persons each. To speed up the process each group starts scanning the barcodes at the same time. We have 3 laser scanners. The acc. No. of books without the bar codes are entered manually into the system. You can use the extension wires to take the systems and scanners near the shelf itself to save time. All the entries from all three systems are compiled in a single system for the physical presence of the books in the library and submitted to your library management software (if you have that) stock verification module for updating in your system. Report submitted to the management or authorities concerned. You can hire or borrow more scanners if you want to speed up and have more groups. The top gun with memory which is available for stock checking costs around Rs.30,000, but only one person can work at a given time ( that is if you have only one gadget). This takes more time. Probably you can hire more no.s if available and if you want to use this. Regards, Gayathri Sen PESIT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com Dear friend, We have around 42,000 plus books and we follow the following steps which seems to be quite efficient. Most of the collection is bar coded. We make 3 groups of 3 persons each. To speed up the process each group starts scanning the barcodes at the same time. We have 3 laser scanners. The acc. No. of books without the bar codes are entered manually into the system. You can use the extension wires to take the systems and scanners near the shelf itself to save time. All the entries from all three systems are compiled in a single system for the physical presence of the books in the library and submitted to your library management software (if you have that) stock verification module for updating in your system. Report submitted to the management or authorities concerned. You can hire or borrow more scanners if you want to speed up and have more groups. The top gun with memory which is available for stock checking costs around Rs.30,000, but only one person can work at a given time ( that is if you have only one gadget). This takes more time. Probably you can hire more no.s if available and if you want to use this. Regards, Gayathri Sen PESIT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Congratulation - NIT - Rourkela for mandating OA Archiving
by Sukhdev Singh 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

I learn from Prof. Arunachalam's email that National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela adopted an OA mandate. The policy adopted by NIT as summarised in ROARMAP is - "All research papers by faculty and students, MTech (Research) and Ph. D. thesis is to be self-archived in Dspace@nitr or it should be submitted to the librarian for archiving, so that others interested may benefit by referring to these documents. The Administration may use this archive for assessment of faculty performance when needed." All credit should go to the Librarian ( I don't know who -- sorry!! ). Others should fellow the example. CONGRATULATIONS!! NIT and the LIBRARIAN!! --Sukhdev Singh, NIC. http://openmed.nic.in

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New small molecules database on open access
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

>From Peter Suber's blog "Open Access News" New OA database on small molecules ChemBank is a new OA database from the Broad Institute's Chemical Biology Program (at Harvard University) and funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute's Initiative for Chemical Genetics (ICG). (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) From the site: This knowledge environment includes freely available data derived from small molecules and small-molecule screens, and resources for studying the data so that biological and medical insights can be gained.... Currently, ChemBank stores information on hundreds of thousands of small molecules and hundreds of biomedically relevant assays that have been performed at the ICG in collaborations involving biomedical researchers worldwide. These scientists have agreed to perform their experiments in an open data-sharing environment (data-sharing agreement). The goals of ChemBank are to provide life scientists unfettered access to biomedically relevant data and tools heretofore available almost exclusively in the private sector. We intend for ChemBank to be a planning and discovery tool for chemists, biologists, and drug hunters anywhere, with the only necessities being a computer, access to the Internet, and a desire to extract knowledge from public experiments whose greatest value is likely to reside in their collective sum.

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Re: European Union study on scientific publishing
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 04 Jun '06

04 Jun '06

Friends: Here is a letter from Dr Alma Swan, who came to deliver the keynote address at the special session on open access at this year's Science Congress, held at Hyderabad. Please request your scientist friends to write to the European Union's Directorate General of Research at rtd-scientific-publication(a)cec.eu.int Let them tell how important it is to have open access to all scientific research papers. Inaction may be taken to mean that OA is not really an important issue for scientists! Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] > Dear friends, > > I apologise for the round-robin message but time is of the essence and I > need to get this out to a number of people quickly. > > Responses are currently being collected to the European Union's study on > scientific publishing > (http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-stu > dy_en.pdf). The report is long, but the recommendations are right at the > beginning and include some excellent ones for Open Access. A good summary > of > the report and its findings is found in Robin Peek's article for > InformationToday at: http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb060410-1.shtml > > I have been told that there is disappointment at the EU that the research > community has not responded more enthusiastically. The EU people see their > role as serving the research community and feel - rightly - that the > future > of publishing should be an important issue for that community. The lack of > response belies that, unfortunately. > > The deadline for responses has been extended until June 15th in order to > give the research community more time to respond. If we don't respond, > then > the EU cannot be blamed for assuming OA is not an important issue to > academia. This is the chance to show that it is, and the chance won't come > again. So, if you can spare a few moments, please would you write a line > or > two in support of Open Access for research results, declaring your > position > and interest and saying why it would be beneficial for the EU to take a > policy decision on Open Access to scientific research results. It doesn't > matter if you live and work outside the EU: the arguments for OA apply the > world over and you can encourage the EU to set an example in this respect. > > Your message should be e-mailed to DG Research at: > rtd-scientific-publication(a)cec.eu.int > > Responses are probably measured as much by numbers as by the quality of > the > content - like parliamentary representatives counting letters for and > against an issue to give them an idea of strength of public feeling! Just > a > couple of lines from you would therefore make a difference: there is no > need > to spend a lot of time on it if you are busy. If you can represent your > group, department, school or even institution then that would add even > more > weight. > > Thanks in advance if you can contribute. > > With warm best wishes, > > Alma > __________________________ > Alma P Swan, BSc, PhD, MBA > Director > Key Perspectives Ltd > 2 Denver Place > Elm Grove Road > Topsham > Devon, UK > EX3 0EP > Tel: +44 (0)1392 879702 > www.keyperspectives.co.uk > Consultants to the scholarly information industry > >

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NIT-R mandates OA for all its papers and theses!
by Subbiah Arunachalam 03 Jun '06

03 Jun '06

>From SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #98[http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-02-06.htm] * Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries. On May 15, India's National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Rourkela adopted an OA mandate. According to the policy summary in ROARMAP, "All research papers by faculty and students, MTech (Research) and Ph. D. thesis is to be self-archived in Dspace@nitr or it should be submitted to the librarian for archiving, so that others interested may benefit by referring to these documents. The Administration may use this archive for assessment of faculty performance when needed." NIT's is the sixth worldwide university-level OA mandate and the first from India. For the other five, see the institutions with asterisks by their names in ROARMAP. India's National Institute of Technology http://www.nitrkl.ac.in/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#114752693… ROARMAP http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/ ----- Congratulations to the Director of NIT-R and Mr Muthu Madhan, Librarian, NIT-R, for their bold vision. But when will the rest of India's higher educational institutions and research laboratories set up institutional archives and mandate OA for all their research publications? After all, most of India's researchers - be they faculty or students in universities or scientists in laboratories - are supported by public funds. It is only fair that publicly-funded research is made freely available to other researchers and students of science. Here are some more excerpts from Peter Suber's SPARC Open Access Newsletter No.98: Here are the top stories from May: * German Parliament considers an OA bill. * National OA policies emerging in four other countries. * Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries. * OA repositories pop up at institutions in three countries. * Gunther Eysenbach confirms the OA impact advantage. * German Parliament considers an OA bill. The Upper House of Germany's Parliament (Bundesrat) is considering a bill to permit author self-archiving of journal articles six months after publication regardless of the terms in a copyright transfer agreement the author might have signed. Here's an English-language summary of the bill by Gerd Hansen, an OA advocate, doctoral candidate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property Law in Munich, and the author or at least the inspiration for the new bill. From his email: The provision that is currently being discussed is based on the wording I have proposed in an article on "Access to scientific information" published in GRUR Int. 2005, 378, p. 17 (until this very moment only in German). The Bundesrat now asked for a provision (p. 7) that would support OA in particular by giving authors the right to make their articles available online, even if they have granted exclusive rights to the publisher, if the following requirements are met: --only after expiration of 6-months since first publication --research predominantly based on public (tax payer) money --only publications in periodicals --non-commercial purpose of post-print-publication --author is obliged to use his final version of the article The bill permits author-initiated OA to publicly-funded research in Germany, though without mandating it. A mandate would be stronger, of course. But even many mandates (proposed or adopted) make vague or counterproductive exceptions for cases in which authors transfer copyright to publishers and publishers dislike the funder's OA policy. The German bill elegantly resolves doubts about permission and makes publisher dissent irrelevant. Moreover, Germany already has something of a mandate. The OA policy of Germany's DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the country's primary public funding agency, tells grantees that they should deposit their DFG-funded research in OA repositories. The German OA bill is unusual for seeking to facilitate OA by amending copyright law, a strategy tried in the US with the Sabo Bill (June 2003) and since abandoned. In a country more likely to amend copyright law in the wrong direction than the right direction, like the US, this is a very difficult and uncertain strategy. But where it can succeed, it can be direct, effective, and durable. Is Germany such a country? We'll soon see. ............. * National OA policies emerging in four other countries. Four other countries either adopted or began considering national OA policies --all in May. Together with the German OA bill these are signs of growing momentum not only toward OA, but toward national commitments to OA. The Australian Research Council is considering a national OA policy. In his May 26 submission, Arthur Sale recommended that the ARC mandate OA for ARC-funded research. His proposal would mandate deposit of a postprint immediately upon acceptance for publication and immediate OA for the metadata. For the full-text article he recommends "delayed access, restricted access or closed access...depending on [the author's] agreement with the relevant journal." http://eprints.comp.utas.edu.au:81/archive/00000277/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#114873581… On May 23, the Finnish Council of University Rectors launched a national OA initiative "(1) to give aid to universities and research institutes in setting up institutional repositories; (2) to inform researchers about how open access is a part of the research process; and (3) to provide an easy-to-use platform for the open access journals of Finnish learned societies." At the same time, the Council decided to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge. http://www.minedu.fi/julkaisut/tiede/2005/tr16/tr16.pdf http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#114838872… On May 11, Sweden has launched a national OA initiative "to promote maximum accessibility and visibility of works produced by researchers, teachers and students at Swedish universities and university colleges." The new initiative will promote both OA repositories and OA journals in Sweden. http://www.kb.se/openaccess/english/english_intro.htm http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_14_fosblogarchive.html#114805874… The Academy of Science of South Africa wrote a report in March (apparently not released until May) recommending both green and gold OA. See especially Recommendation 6, which would use public funds to pay processing fees at OA journals, launch a network of OA repositories, and harvest the repositories --everything essential except mandated deposits in the repositories. http://blues.sabinet.co.za/images/ejour/assaf/assaf_strategic_research_publ… http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#114720037… Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] From SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #98 [http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-02-06.htm] http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#114720037… [A] * Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries. On May 15, India's National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Rourkela adopted an OA mandate. According to the policy summary in ROARMAP, "All research papers by faculty and students, MTech (Research) and Ph. D. thesis is to be self-archived in Dspace@nitr or it should be submitted to the librarian for archiving, so that others interested may benefit by referring to these documents. The Administration may use this archive for assessment of faculty performance when needed." NIT's is the sixth worldwide university-level OA mandate and the first from India. For the other five, see the institutions with asterisks by their names in ROARMAP. India's National Institute of Technology http://www.nitrkl.ac.in/ http://www.nitrkl.ac.in/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#114752693… http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#114752693… ROARMAP http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/ http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/ ----- Congratulations to the Director of NIT-R and Mr Muthu Madhan, Librarian, NIT-R, for their bold vision. But when will the rest of India's higher educational institutions and research laboratories set up institutional archives and mandate OA for all their research publications? After all, most of India's researchers - be they faculty or students in universities or scientists in laboratories - are supported by public funds. It is only fair that publicly-funded research is made freely available to other researchers and students of science. Here are some more excerpts from Peter Suber's SPARC Open Access Newsletter No.98: Here are the top stories from May: * German Parliament considers an OA bill. * National OA policies emerging in four other countries. * Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries. * OA repositories pop up at institutions in three countries. * Gunther Eysenbach confirms the OA impact advantage. [A] * German Parliament considers an OA bill. The Upper House of Germany's Parliament (Bundesrat) is considering a bill to permit author self-archiving of journal articles six months after publication regardless of the terms in a copyright transfer agreement the author might have signed. Here's an English-language summary of the bill by Gerd Hansen, an OA advocate, doctoral candidate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property Law in Munich, and the author or at least the inspiration for the new bill. From his email: The provision that is currently being discussed is based on the wording I have proposed in an article on Access to scientific information published in GRUR Int. 2005, 378, p. 17 (until this very moment only in German). The Bundesrat now asked for a provision (p. 7) that would support OA in particular by giving authors the right to make their articles available online, even if they have granted exclusive rights to the publisher, if the following requirements are met: --only after expiration of 6-months since first publication --research predominantly based on public (tax payer) money --only publications in periodicals --non-commercial purpose of post-print-publication --author is obliged to use his final version of the article The bill permits author-initiated OA to publicly-funded research in Germany, though without mandating it. A mandate would be stronger, of course. But even many mandates (proposed or adopted) make vague or counterproductive exceptions for cases in which authors transfer copyright to publishers and publishers dislike the funder's OA policy. The German bill elegantly resolves doubts about permission and makes publisher dissent irrelevant. Moreover, Germany already has something of a mandate. The OA policy of Germany's DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the country's primary public funding agency, tells grantees that they should deposit their DFG-funded research in OA repositories. The German OA bill is unusual for seeking to facilitate OA by amending copyright law, a strategy tried in the US with the Sabo Bill (June 2003) and since abandoned. In a country more likely to amend copyright law in the wrong direction than the right direction, like the US, this is a very difficult and uncertain strategy. But where it can succeed, it can be direct, effective, and durable. Is Germany such a country? We'll soon see. ............. * National OA policies emerging in four other countries. Four other countries either adopted or began considering national OA policies --all in May. Together with the German OA bill these are signs of growing momentum not only toward OA, but toward national commitments to OA. The Australian Research Council is considering a national OA policy. In his May 26 submission, Arthur Sale recommended that the ARC mandate OA for ARC-funded research. His proposal would mandate deposit of a postprint immediately upon acceptance for publication and immediate OA for the metadata. For the full-text article he recommends "delayed access, restricted access or closed access...depending on [the author's] agreement with the relevant journal." http://eprints.comp.utas.edu.au:81/archive/00000277/ http://eprints.comp.utas.edu.au:81/archive/00000277/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#114873581… http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#114873581… On May 23, the Finnish Council of University Rectors launched a national OA initiative "(1) to give aid to universities and research institutes in setting up institutional repositories; (2) to inform researchers about how open access is a part of the research process; and (3) to provide an easy-to-use platform for the open access journals of Finnish learned societies." At the same time, the Council decided to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge. http://www.minedu.fi/julkaisut/tiede/2005/tr16/tr16.pdf http://www.minedu.fi/julkaisut/tiede/2005/tr16/tr16.pdf http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#114838872… http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#114838872… On May 11, Sweden has launched a national OA initiative "to promote maximum accessibility and visibility of works produced by researchers, teachers and students at Swedish universities and university colleges." The new initiative will promote both OA repositories and OA journals in Sweden. http://www.kb.se/openaccess/english/english_intro.htm http://www.kb.se/openaccess/english/english_intro.htm http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_14_fosblogarchive.html#114805874… http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_14_fosblogarchive.html#114805874… The Academy of Science of South Africa wrote a report in March (apparently not released until May) recommending both green and gold OA. See especially Recommendation 6, which would use public funds to pay processing fees at OA journals, launch a network of OA repositories, and harvest the repositories --everything essential except mandated deposits in the repositories. http://blues.sabinet.co.za/images/ejour/assaf/assaf_strategic_research_publ… http://blues.sabinet.co.za/images/ejour/assaf/assaf_strategic_research_publ… http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#114720037… http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#114720037… Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]

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