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[LIS-Forum] Felicitation-Smt. Lalithabai, DLIS, University of Kerala
by Saji S. Nair 17 Apr '06

17 Apr '06

Dear friends, This is to inform that Smt. K. K. Lalithabai (‘Lalitha Lenin’ in literary circles), Reader, Department of Library & Information Science, University of Kerala is completing her ‘Shashtyabdi’(completion of 60 years) in April 2006, and formally laying down office on superannuation on 30th April 2006. She has been serving the Department for the last twenty-seven years as faculty member and as Head of the Department during 1989-93. Thousands of Information professionals working elsewhere in India and abroad may be her fond disciples who still cherish memories of her classes. All her students and well-wishers are cordially invited to the felicitation programme to be held at DLIS, University Kerala on 29th April 2006. You can wish the beloved teacher at dliskerala(a)email.com Lalitha teacher, through her motherly affection, endeared herself as a friend, philosopher and guide not only on academic and professional issues but also on personal matters. As ‘Lalitha Lenin’, she is well known in social, cultural and literary fields as well. She has a rare combination of gifted teacher, a talented litterateur and an accomplished social activist who assiduously champions the cause of the marginalized and the downtrodden. All the literary works that she has authored were well received and she has been honoured with a number of literary awards. As a member of the judging committees of many of the prestigious awards in literature and film she has earned a reputation for her unbiased and critical appraisal. She always makes use of these opportunities to uphold the role played by Information Science and Information profession in every field of knowledge, especially literature. On behalf of the felicitation committee, this message is posted by Saji S. Nair Regional Cancer Centre Library Thiruvananthapuram Kerala www.rcctvm.org _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web!

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Greenstone Support effort for South Asia has been launched on
by mgsree＠iimk.ac.in 17 Apr '06

17 Apr '06

Dear Colleagues: We are pleased to announce the launch of the Greenstone Support Organization for South Asia on April 5, 2006. Our objective is to ensure effective promotion and support for Greenstone in the South Asia region. The support site is available at http://greenstonesupport.iimk.ac.in. Please visit the site and your valued contributions towards enriching the site are most welcome. An E-List with the ID greenstonesupport(a)iimk.ac.in is also established for this purpose. Your contributions/suggestions/comments for attention by the community can be submitted to this mail ID. Other functions as well as subscription to the E-List are explained in the site. This E-List (Support Forum) is the first step in the establishment of a Greenstone Support Organization for India (GSOI). To this end, the CDDL is coordinating the development of a network of Greenstone users and a feasibility study on GSOI under the supervision of an Advisory Committee (names given in the site). Our profound thanks to the Greenstone team at Waikato, UNESCO, Greenstone Experts and Advisors from India for their wholehearted support and encouragement in this regard. With best regards, Sreekumar/John Rose (IIMK) /(Research Associate, University of Waikato) -- Dr. M. G. Sreekumar Librarian & Head, Center for Development of Digital Libraries (CDDL) Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode IIMK Campus P.O. Kozhikode, Kerala, India-673 570 ----------------------------------------- Phone : +91 495 2809140 Fax : +91 495 2803010/11 Email : mgsree(a)iimk.ac.in Web : www.iimk.ac.in =========================================

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assistance from freelancers
by Mailing List Manager 17 Apr '06

17 Apr '06

Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:53:34 +0530 From: guhamba <guhamba(a)informindia.co.in> Dear All, We need the assistance of a few freelancers in and around Malleshwaram, Bangalore, with proficiency in one or more of the Indian languages that include Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati and Punjabi, apart from English. The freelancer should be capable of: a) Translating front pages of publications in Indian langauge(s) to English. b) Transliterating as per standards for which a one-time training will be imparted. Having an MLIS background will be an added advantage. Those interested may pl. contact with resume: guhamba(a)informindia.co.in Regards, D.Guhamba Informatics India Ltd 112/7 11 th Cross 5th Main Malleswaram Bangalore 560 003

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Why Are some Librarians so Insensitive...
by Chitra P Rao 17 Apr '06

17 Apr '06

I read the article by Ranjit Lall and have to accept that some or most of us are so cought up by our rules that we forget that our prime objective is to provide information.. Yes to our bonafide memebers.. which we can accomplish very easily from the second meeting. First we should always give the service and then refer the user to our rules and ask for memberships etc. Unless we develop these PR Skills we will remain insensitive. The rules are made for us to manage the Library and we can definitely ensure this but with more care and politeness. It is also necessary oftentimes to explain the user , the funding and who should use the Library etc after you have served once.. Hence its only the first crucial step which is very important that all of us must take. It is not necessary that all Libraries accomadate all users, but the refusal should be a guidance rather than a Negative... Hope we all can contain ourselves, and not succumb to say NO. I also analyse this as an occupational hazard over the last 25 years I have worked in this field.. Many a time we say a categorical NO which may sound rude but is not so because we actually know that it is not there. But here again if we temper our NO we will seems more accomadative and eager to Help which is what we should project. Sr Librarian and Head LIS NITIE Mumbai 400 087 ph: 28573371 extn 337

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A book on Open Access
by Sukhdev Singh 17 Apr '06

17 Apr '06

Dear Friends Following book on Open Access is available for download. Willinsky, J. (2005) The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship MIT Press < https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/willinsky/TheAccessPrinciple_TheMITPress_026… > --Sukhdev Singh, NIC. http://openmed.nic.in

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Google Calendar
by Sreeharsha_Gopalakrishna＠i2.com 16 Apr '06

16 Apr '06

Google has launched a new service. and this time its about time and more precisely Google will help you organize your time with Google Calendar. Google Calendar is a very strong initial release, with a good balance between powerful features and ease of use. The ability to easily work with multiple calendars and the sharing features are particularly appealing, especially for people who are dissatisfied with their current calendar application. Trying the Google Calendar is low-risk—if you don't like it, you can simply export your information and import it back into your current calendar application. Using Google Calendar, you can create an event, set reminder and even you can notify others about the event, by entering their email id. Looks like Google has taken a leaf from IBM Lotus Notes. Currently those who have Gmail ID can make use of it. www.google.com/calendar Regards ~Sreeharsha BG

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Internet for schools
by Subbiah Arunachalam 15 Apr '06

15 Apr '06

Internet2 Survey Finds Over 46,000 K20 Institutions Connected to its Advanced Network K20 access to advanced networking more than quadruples in four years. http://k20.internet2.edu/survey/survey_index.php More than 46,000 K-12 schools, community colleges, libraries, and museums in 35 U.S. states are now connected to the Internet2 backbone network according to the results of a bi-annual survey, released recently. The survey highlights the success of the nationwide Internet2 K20 Initiative in bringing together Internet2 member institutions and innovators from primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, libraries, and museums to extend new technologies, applications, and advanced content to all educational sectors across the country. -------------- Friends: It is important for us in India to provide Internet connectivity (of reasonable bandwidth) to all our educational institutions. It may sound esoteric, but it is a real need. While we still have schools without proper classrooms, blackboards and decent buildings, one may feel some trepidation to talk about Internet in every school. In my view both are important. We should work on both content and the best means to disseminate/ access the content. It is in this context, both open access and open course ware acquire tremendous importance. Look at what the Azim Premji Foundation is doing in distant hamlets in Kolar district. They have set up many computers in village schools (in mud buildings) and have employed a local graduate trained in computers and educational materal in CD-ROM and are enabling children of class 3 onwards to use the computers and augment their classroom learning with CD-ROM supplements. Look at what the National Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity is aiming to do. Through a network of village knowledge centres and trained volunteers (from among the local communities), NVA is attempting to spread the knowledge revolution in rural India. The Knowledge Commission will do well to work with this enthusiastic rural cadres. Subbiah Arunachalam Internet2 Survey Finds Over 46,000 K20 Institutions Connected to its Advanced Network K20 access to advanced networking more than quadruples in four years. http://k20.internet2.edu/survey/survey_index.php http://k20.internet2.edu/survey/survey_index.php More than 46,000 K-12 schools, community colleges, libraries, and museums in 35 U.S. states are now connected to the Internet2 backbone network according to the results of a bi-annual survey, released recently. The survey highlights the success of the nationwide Internet2 K20 Initiative in bringing together Internet2 member institutions and innovators from primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, libraries, and museums to extend new technologies, applications, and advanced content to all educational sectors across the country. -------------- Friends: It is important for us in India to provide Internet connectivity (of reasonable bandwidth) to all our educational institutions. It may sound esoteric, but it is a real need. While we still have schools without proper classrooms, blackboards and decent buildings, one may feel some trepidation to talk about Internet in every school. In my view both are important. We should work on both content and the best means to disseminate/ access the content. It is in this context, both open access and open course ware acquire tremendous importance. Look at what the Azim Premji Foundation is doing in distant hamlets in Kolar district. They have set up many computers in village schools (in mud buildings) and have employed a local graduate trained in computers and educational materal in CD-ROM and are enabling children of class 3 onwards to use the computers and augment their classroom learning with CD-ROM supplements. Look at what the National Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity is aiming to do. Through a network of village knowledge centres and trained volunteers (from among the local communities), NVA is attempting to spread the knowledge revolution in rural India. The Knowledge Commission will do well to work with this enthusiastic rural cadres. Subbiah Arunachalam

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Vacancy for the post of Library assistant
by js vijaya 15 Apr '06

15 Apr '06

Dear Moderater, Kindly announce the following message. Rush your resume / contact the Librarian (080-7828657 or 9886380349) for the post of of Library Asst. Preferred male BLISc candidate who is willing to work on shift basis. Address: Administrative Management College 18th K.M. , Bannerghatta Road Opp. Union staff Training college Bangalore-560083 Vijayalakshmi J S Librarian Administrative Management College 18th K M Bannerghatta Road Bangalore 560083 Ph: 080-7828657 Mob:9886380349 e-mail:jsvijaya@yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Request for article
by PRASHANTA KUMAR 13 Apr '06

13 Apr '06

Dear Sir/Madam I will be thank full to you if anybody help me to get the blow mentioned article , & kindly consider it as an urgent message. Author : Singh D & Ahuja PS Title: 5S rDNA gene diversity in tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) and its use for variety identification. Journal Details- "Genome", Vol.- 49, No- 1, year . 2006 Page- 91-96 Publisher- NRC Research Press, Canada Thanking You Thanks & Regards, PRASHANTA **************** IHBT, (CSIR), Govt. of India Library, Palampur, HP, Pin- 176061 Mobile- +91 94 18 18 44 21 --------------------------------- Jiyo cricket on Yahoo! India cricket Yahoo! Messenger Mobile Stay in touch with your buddies all the time. Dear Sir/Madam I will be thank full to you if anybody help me to get the blow mentioned article , & kindly consider it as an urgent message. Author : Singh D & Ahuja PS Title: 5S rDNA gene diversity in tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) and its use for variety identification. Journal Details- "Genome", Vol.- 49, No- 1, year . 2006 Page- 91-96 Publisher- NRC Research Press , Canada Thanking You Thanks & Regards, PRASHANTA **************** IHBT, (CSIR), Govt. of India Library, Palampur, HP, Pin- 176061 Mobile- +91 94 18 18 44 21 Jiyo cricket on http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/mailcricket/*http://in.sports.yahoo.com/cric… Yahoo! India cricket http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/mailmobilemessenger/*http://in.mobile.yahoo.… Yahoo! Messenger Mobile Stay in touch with your buddies all the time.

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Rajasthan enacts Library Legislation Act
by D Jotwani 13 Apr '06

13 Apr '06

Dear All You will be pleased to know that the Rajasthan Assembly passed Public Libraries Act 2006 last week. The news was covered bery briefly by local press which I could see during my visit to Udaipur. All the members of Rajasthan Library Association and other professionals who worked hard for this purpose deserve our appreciation and congratulations for the job well done. Regards. -- D. Jotwani Librarian Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Powai, Mumbai 400076 Phone 91-22-25768920, 91-22-25720227

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First Author: a resource for scientists for publishing scientific research
by Sukhdev Singh 13 Apr '06

13 Apr '06

Friends, Just came to know about a site called First Author < http://www.firstauthor.org/index.html > . It is a resource for scientists dedicated to innovations in, and debates surrounding, publishing scientific research. It reports news from top journals, publishers, and funding and research bodies. New technologies for referencing, producing, and archiving scientific papers are reviewed here. Long-term debates in scientific writing such as peer review, impact factors, open access publishing, and intellectual property are also discussed. --Sukhdev Singh, NIC. http://openmed.nic.in

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Caseplace.org
by vimal kumar 13 Apr '06

13 Apr '06

Dear Professional, CasePlace.org is a free service of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program. CasePlace offers a wide range of business education materials in social impact management, sustainability and business ethics. The site contains cases and teaching notes, teaching modules, journal articles, course syllabi, books, conference announcements, current events and more. Vimal Kumar Asian School of Business Technopark Trivandrum-695 581 vimal0212(a)yahoo.com --------------------------------- Blab-away for as little as 1¢/min. Make PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Dear Professional, CasePlace.org is a free service of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program. CasePlace offers a wide range of business education materials in social impact management, sustainability and business ethics. The site contains cases and teaching notes, teaching modules, journal articles, course syllabi, books, conference announcements, current events and more. Vimal Kumar Asian School of Business Technopark Trivandrum-695 581 vimal0212(a)yahoo.com Blab-away for as little as 1¢/min. Make http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman2/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/ev… PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.

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Trials is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal
by sandeep bhavsar 13 Apr '06

13 Apr '06

Trials http://www.trialsjournal.com/ Trials is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal that will encompass all aspects of the performance and findings of randomized controlled trials. Trials will experiment with, and then refine, innovative approaches to improving communication about trials. They are keen to move beyond publishing traditional trial results articles (although these will be included). They believe this represents an exciting opportunity to advance the science and reporting of trials. Prior to 2006, Trials was published as Current Controlled Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine (CCTCVM). All published CCTCVM articles are available via the Trials website and citations to CCTCVM article URLs will continue to be supported. The impact factor shown relates to articles published in CCTCVM during 2003-4. Making all its content open access and not retaining copyright, Trials offers a way to make data both freely available and highly visible to trialists worldwide; this will benefit the impact of your publication among peers and society. The journal has unrestricted space and takes advantage of all the technical possibilities available for electronic publishing. To date, journals have focused on reporting the results of trials, with very little coverage of why and how they are conducted. Reports of trials have been restricted both by authors and editors - both parties often select only a subset of the outcomes measured, while the latter often impose word limits on the articles published making it difficult to communicate the lessons learnt from conducting the trial, let alone include adequate details of how the trial was conducted. The Internet offers both unlimited space and interactivity, and they are keen to harness these attributes. For instance, trialists will be able to provide the detail required to be a true scientific record and do more to make the article's message comprehensible to a variety of reader groups. They will also be able to communicate not only all outcome measures, as well as varying analyses and interpretations, but also in-depth descriptions of what they did and what they learnt. This sharing of direct experience is fundamental to improving the quality and conduct of trials worldwide. Thanks and Regards Sandeep Bhavsar Librarian Dr.V.N.Bedekar Institute of Research & Management Studies Thane (w) 400601 ------------------------------------------------------ Phone (Off) 25364492 25446554 Mobile 9870484626 email sandeep(a)vpmthane.org Website www.vpmthane.org ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail Trials http://www.trialsjournal.com/ http://www.trialsjournal.com/ Trials is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal that will encompass all aspects of the performance and findings of randomized controlled trials. Trials will experiment with, and then refine, innovative approaches to improving communication about trials. They are keen to move beyond publishing traditional trial results articles (although these will be included). They believe this represents an exciting opportunity to advance the science and reporting of trials. Prior to 2006, Trials was published as Current Controlled Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine (CCTCVM). All published CCTCVM articles are available via the Trials website and citations to CCTCVM article URLs will continue to be supported. The impact factor shown relates to articles published in CCTCVM during 2003-4. Making all its content open access and not retaining copyright, Trials offers a way to make data both freely available and highly visible to trialists worldwide; this will benefit the impact of your publication among peers and society. The journal has unrestricted space and takes advantage of all the technical possibilities available for electronic publishing. To date, journals have focused on reporting the results of trials, with very little coverage of why and how they are conducted. Reports of trials have been restricted both by authors and editors - both parties often select only a subset of the outcomes measured, while the latter often impose word limits on the articles published making it difficult to communicate the lessons learnt from conducting the trial, let alone include adequate details of how the trial was conducted. The Internet offers both unlimited space and interactivity, and they are keen to harness these attributes. For instance, trialists will be able to provide the detail required to be a true scientific record and do more to make the article's message comprehensible to a variety of reader groups. They will also be able to communicate not only all outcome measures, as well as varying analyses and interpretations, but also in-depth descriptions of what they did and what they learnt. This sharing of direct experience is fundamental to improving the quality and conduct of trials worldwide. Thanks and Regards Sandeep Bhavsar Librarian Dr.V.N.Bedekar Institute of Research & Management Studies Thane (w) 400601 ------------------------------------------------------ Phone (Off) 25364492 25446554 Mobile 9870484626 email mailto:sandeep@vpmthane.org sandeep(a)vpmthane.org Website http://www.vpmthane.org/ www.vpmthane.org ----------------------------------------------------- http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/uk/taglines/default/messenger/*http://uk.messen… Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PC http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/uk/taglines/default/messenger/*http://uk.messen… calling worldwide with voicemail

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Microsoft Academic Search
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 13 Apr '06

13 Apr '06

Friends: "The scholarly organizations that have signed up to work with Microsoft on the new search tool [Microsoft Academic Search] include societies like the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Association for Computing Machinery, the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, and the Institute of Physics. Also cooperating are major publishers -- such as the Taylor & Francis Group, Blackwell Publishing, Elsevier, the Nature Publishing Group, and John Wiley & Sons -- and library organizations, including the British Library and OCLC Online Computer Library Center...." Major Indian publishers of research journals should sign up with Microsoft witout any delay. Especially those who publish open access journals (IASc, INSA, MedKnow, IISc, ICMR, Calcut Medical College, etc.). Being Indexed by Microsoft's new service and Google Scholar will give much greater visibility (and citability) to our journals. This is true especially for those journals which are not indexed by the Web of Science. Currently Microsoft Academic Search concentrates on computer science, electrical engineering and physics and it has indexed several million articles already. But soon the service will expand and cover other subjects. As it is competing with Google Scholar, and as both services are free of cost, it will be good for researchers. I am sure subscription-based abstracting and indexing services will start providing several free services very soon, just to be able to remain in business! Subbiah Arunachalam

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Librarians are insensitive to readers' owes.
by Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy 12 Apr '06

12 Apr '06

Dear Friends Please read the following article. Why are some us - librarians - so very irresponsible and insenstive? Can something be do to sensitize librarians to be more service oriented? Vyasamoorthy, P ================== What are your bonafides? The Hindu Sunday 9th April 2006 Magazine section RANJIT LAL SOME weeks back, while trying to do some research for a book I was working on, I went to the library of the National Museum in New Delhi. The first thing I am shown is a notice that said something to the effect that only scholars and suchlike heavies were allowed to use the library. I decided to wait for the librarian and when she arrived, told her what my area of interest was, and if she could help. She looked me up and down and said, `But what are your bonefides?' Excuse me? The very fact that I was in that library asking for assistance on a particular subject would in any civilised country (and especially one with 5,000 years of erudite civilisation backing it up) and library, be considered more than enough for assistance to be forthcoming. "What do you mean?" I asked, struggling to come to terms with this monumental insult and inadequately indicating my notebook. "You can see I have a notebook and pen... " (just in case she had mistook it for a petrol can and lighter). She was after bigger things, Ph.Ds, M.Phils, letters of recommendation from Vice-chancellors, stuff like that. I see absolutely no reason why a citizen of this country (democracy, democracy, democracy, remember?) pursuing a subject of his or her interest needs a degree in order to use a library to do so. I told her that I was a member of the Teen Murti library and British Council... "Ah, but you pay there... Sorry." Never bothering to pause and think that if I'm ready to pay to be a member of a library I must genuinely be interested in the books and not in how comfortable the chairs are for a catnap. Anyway big deal — if they had any sense they would also charge people for daily use to ensure that they didn't use the place to catnap in or any such anti-national thing. But make the place available to those who want to use it — otherwise you are failing in your mandate and might as well shut down. I normally lose my temper once in about 10 years, and didn't want to use up my decade's quota there, so I walked out quickly. But it is precisely this attitude that has strangled us as a nation and people. What the hell was that librarian so afraid of? That I might acquire some deadly knowledge in that library by which I would become dictator of the world, and she would lose her job? God knows she was probably only doing what was in her brief but this stinks and how. If you are so afraid that people will misuse something that you prevent them from using it at all what is the justification for your existence in the first place? And why do I need any academic degree to prop me up? If they doubt my veracity (and why must I prove that anyway?) all they needed to do is to ask a few questions about exactly what I was interested in and looking for. (And would I have been in that museum and library in the first place if I had not been interested?) This whole attitude is based on the assumption that your motives are suspect and malafide — that you are up to no good — and must have "verification" or "authentication" and soon possibly beatification to certify that you are not (in this case) a book ripper or library napper or something as reprehensible. Which, no government really has any right to assume of its citizens. And to blankly deny access to knowledge in a library — in my book that is cardinal sin — and any society that goes in for that sort of thing is plunging hotfoot down the drain. Or was it just a manifestation of petty power? You know, that colonial hangover thing? Where the answer to every question or request is and must always be an unequivocal "no". You cannot do this, you cannot go there, you cannot see this, you cannot, cannot, cannot! Not because anything earth-shattering will happen if you do, but because it gives the pipsqueak given the authority to say no, the kicks which are the perks of his or her job. They tend to forget that we pay their salaries and overtimes and D.As and for their endless cups of tea. So what's my next course of action then if I still decide that I need the research and to look at that library? Well, the obvious one. Pull wires. Which, in a sense defeats the whole purpose because then I might as well have a Ph.D. Perhaps I should just tag one on after my name anyway... Make that a double! -- Dr P Vyasamoorthy, SENIORS (Society for Enriched Information of Relevance to Seniors), 30, Gruhalakshmi Colony, Secunderabad 500018 Phone 27846631

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GreenstoneWiki
by Sharad Jadhav 12 Apr '06

12 Apr '06

Dear All, GreenstoneWiki (Greenstone Digital Library Software) is now available at http://greenstone.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/GreenstoneWiki which comprises following information Greenstone FAQ Tutorial exercises Example collections Manuals Other documentation User contributed documentation Greenstone workshops Regards, Sharad Jadhav ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- National Insurance Academy 25,Balewadi, Baner Road, NIA PO, Pune 411 045 India http://www.niapune.com Email: sharad(a)niapune.com sharad7703(a)yahoo.co.in Phones: +91 20 27204066(D), 27204000/4444(Board) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------- Jiyo cricket on Yahoo! India cricket Yahoo! Messenger Mobile Stay in touch with your buddies all the time. Dear All, GreenstoneWiki (Greenstone Digital Library Software) is now available at http://greenstone.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/GreenstoneWiki http://greenstone.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/GreenstoneWiki which comprises following information Greenstone FAQ Tutorial exercises Example collections Manuals Other documentation User contributed documentation Greenstone workshops Regards, Sharad Jadhav ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- National Insurance Academy 25,Balewadi, Baner Road, NIA PO, Pune 411 045 India http://www.niapune.com/ http://www.niapune.com Email: mailto:sharad@niapune.com sharad(a)niapune.com mailto:sharad7703@yahoo.co.in sharad7703(a)yahoo.co.in Phones: +91 20 27204066(D), 27204000/4444(Board) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jiyo cricket on http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/mailcricket/*http://in.sports.yahoo.com/cric… Yahoo! India cricket http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/mailmobilemessenger/*http://in.mobile.yahoo.… Yahoo! Messenger Mobile Stay in touch with your buddies all the time.

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Openomy
by Mailing List Manager 12 Apr '06

12 Apr '06

Date: 10 Apr 2006 10:07:22 -0000 From: moumita dey <deymoumita_78(a)rediffmail.com> Openomy is useful for storing information online.But pls tell us about its privacy/ security? regards Moumita Dey

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Indian universities should make their course ware open
by Subbiah Arunachalam 12 Apr '06

12 Apr '06

Friends: The Open University in the UK is going to make available its course materials free on the Net. The vice chancellors of open universities in India may consider following this model. If we really want to usher in the knowledge revolution in India, we should think of such out-of-the-box solutions. The Open Course ware project of MIT and several other American, Chinese and Japanese universities are already very popular. The Internet and the Web have made it possible to do many things which we could not have done in the past. We should take advantage of the new technologies to the maximum extent possible. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ------------------------------------ Open University to bring course content online 06 April 2006 The Open University will become the first institution in the UK to offer free course materials online to students and the wider public later this year. The university will select educational resources from all levels from access to postgraduate study and from a full range of subject themes, including arts and history, business and management, languages and science and nature. The material will be free to teachers and students studying in the UK and abroad, with the project following a long partnership with the BBC, which broadcasts the university's television programs. The material will not only be course or subject specific and students will also be able to access a range of study skills material to improve their research. In 2001, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) made nearly all of its course materials- including lecture notes, course outlines, reading lists and assignments- available online for free. The US institution now has material for 1250 of its courses online and expects to have all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses on the web by next year. The university plans to provide both educational material and a range of learning support, with one site aimed for learners, where material with suggested learning pathways will be offered. The second site will be mainly for course creators to encourage the sharing and re-use of materials. The Open University has more than 210,000 students studying courses this year, with around 40,000 studying outside the UK. The online project will start in October. Source: The Guardian Friends: The Open University in the UK is going to make available its course materials free on the Net. The vice chancellors of open universities in India may consider following this model. If we really want to usher in the knowledge revolution in India, we should think of such out-of-the-box solutions. The Open Course ware project of MIT and several other American, Chinese and Japanese universities are already very popular. The Internet and the Web have made it possible to do many things which we could not have done in the past. We should take advantage of the new technologies to the maximum extent possible. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ------------------------------------ Open University to bring course content online 06 April 2006 The Open University will become the first institution in the UK to offer free course materials online to students and the wider public later this year. The university will select educational resources from all levels from access to postgraduate study and from a full range of subject themes, including arts and history, business and management, languages and science and nature. The material will be free to teachers and students studying in the UK and abroad, with the project following a long partnership with the BBC, which broadcasts the university's television programs. The material will not only be course or subject specific and students will also be able to access a range of study skills material to improve their research. In 2001, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) made nearly all of its course materials- including lecture notes, course outlines, reading lists and assignments- available online for free. The US institution now has material for 1250 of its courses online and expects to have all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses on the web by next year. The university plans to provide both educational material and a range of learning support, with one site aimed for learners, where material with suggested learning pathways will be offered. The second site will be mainly for course creators to encourage the sharing and re-use of materials. The Open University has more than 210,000 students studying courses this year, with around 40,000 studying outside the UK. The online project will start in October. Source: http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,,1728283,00.htm The Guardian

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EC report on sci publishing
by Subbiah Arunachalam 12 Apr '06

12 Apr '06

From Information Today Arun ------ European Commission Releases Key Scientific Publishing Report by Robin Peek April 10, 2006 - The European Commission has finally released its report on scientific publishing and now has firmly placed itself in the international discussion of where such publishing should go in the future. In June 2004, the European Commission began a study to examine the economic and technical evolution of scientific publishing in Europe. Originally the results were going to be made available in 2005, but the final report was released in January 2006. It was only made available to the public on March 31, 2006. The study was carried out by a consortium led by Mathias Dewatripont of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The study, undertaken by the directorate-general for research, sought to determine the conditions for "optimum" operation of the scientific sector and to assess how the Commission could help meet those conditions. European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik said: "It is in all our interests to find a model for scientific publication that serves research excellence. We are ready to work with readers, authors, publishers, and funding bodies to develop such a model." It was not the intent of this study to replicate the "voluminous existing literature" but to focus upon the "state of the art." In the balance, this report does a good job of not hammering us over the head with things that are already well-known and well-reported. However, this is not a frothy report, and the analysis in this 100-page document is from an economic perspective. This report even tackled the thorny issue of long-term preservation, which is largely absent from many other discussions. The report acknowledged that much of the scientific research conducted in Europe is publicly funded and hence recommended that access to such research should be guaranteed. The report contains numerous recommendations; there are too many to be listed here. But some are noteworthy because they validate other proposals or offer new insights into mechanisms for guiding the future of scholarly research. The first recommendation is: "Guarantee public access to publicly-funded research shortly after publication." Note that the following actions could be taken at the European level: "Establish a European policy mandating published articles arising from EC-funded research to be available after a given time period in open access archives." Secondly, explore with Member States and with European research and academic associations whether and how such policies and open repositories could be implemented. Next, the report encouraged that there be a "level-playing field" so that different business models in publishing can compete fairly in the market. "It seems desirable to allow for experimentation and competition between various possible business models." The report noted that monies should be allocated to libraries to subscribe to reader or library-pay journals "but also to authors to pay for publication costs in author-pay journals, and to researchers in the reader-pay model." The report also recommended that ranking of journal quality be raised beyond "scientific quality, stritco sensu." While citation counts should remain the dominant criterion, "dimensions related to the quality of dissemination (self-archiving authorization, publisher archiving provisions, copyright provisions, abstracting and indexing services, reference linking, etc.) could be tracked explicitly and possibly valued by research funding bodies." Another recommendation is to guarantee perennial access to scholarly journal digital archives by promoting the creation of "not-for-profit long-term preservation archives which balance interests among publishers, libraries, and scholars." To this end, the report encourages an investigation into the feasibility/desirability of creating a European preservation organization that would be "JSTOR-like." The report recommended the promotion of pro-competitive pricing strategies, noting that the limited savings that libraries obtain for canceling subscriptions "does make it hard for newcomers to have access to library budgets." It is suggested that simple rules could be followed. For example, the "price of electronic access should not depend on the historical number of print subscriptions" but instead should be related to "transparent indicators, like usage or the number of faculty [and] students, as is the case for JSTOR." In addition, the development of electronic publications should be promoted by eliminating the "unfavorable tax treatment of electronic publications" by either reducing the VAT rate or introducing a tax refund. The differences in VAT rates applied to print versus electronic journals "induced a bias in the libraries' decisions to continue subscribing to print journals, along with the electronic version." The authors noted that the "higher rate applied to electronic delivery of information in Europe strongly affects European research institutions, especially when compared to other countries where electronic services are exempt from tax." Furthermore, public funding and public-private partnerships should be formed to create journal digital archives in areas when there is little commercial interest, such as in the social sciences and the humanities. The report also strongly favored the development of open access archives, noting that they provide "immediate, free, and maximal access to research results, whether published or not, to anyone with an Internet connection." And, those institutional repositories contribute to "raise the profile of the institutions, making their research output visible and accessible, and provide a potential research assessment tool." In turn, this enhanced visibility and accessibility "may lead to higher citation," noting that recent studies show that open access increases impact. However, there are concerns about the archival quality of the open access archives. Observing that the installation costs are low, the "maintenance costs are more difficult to plan, as they will vary with the number of records, and the long term preservation purposes." Specific actions at the European level to improve visibility include "establish[ing] a European policy mandating articles funded from European sources to be available in open access archives, for instance by mean of author's self-archiving." Also, there is a need to "specify standards that will insure that the archives are [accessible], interoperable, and have cross-searching facilities. In addition, set up a general European archive for researchers with access to a subject-based or institutional archive." The European Commission is keen to hear the views of all interested parties. It is therefore calling for reactions to the study and contributions on other issues linked to scientific publications. Contributions should be sent to rtd-scientific-publication(a)cec.eu.int by June 1, 2006. The study and its public feedback will be at the center of a conference on scientific publication to be held in autumn 2006. SINAPSE, the Web interface between the scientific community and Europe's policymakers, will also host a debate on the subject. (See the SINAPSE Web site at http://europa.eu.int/sinapse.) The study, entitled "Study on the economic and technical evolution of the scientific publication markets in Europe," is available for downloading at http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publicati…. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Peek is associate professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College. She is also writes the Focus on Publishing column for Information Today. She can be reached at robin.peek(a)simmons.edu. From Information Today Arun ------ European Commission Releases Key Scientific Publishing Report by Robin Peek April 10, 2006 The European Commission has finally released its report on scientific publishing and now has firmly placed itself in the international discussion of where such publishing should go in the future. In June 2004, the European Commission began a study to examine the economic and technical evolution of scientific publishing in Europe. Originally the results were going to be made available in 2005, but the final report was released in January 2006. It was only made available to the public on March 31, 2006. The study was carried out by a consortium led by Mathias Dewatripont of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The study, undertaken by the directorate-general for research, sought to determine the conditions for optimum operation of the scientific sector and to assess how the Commission could help meet those conditions. European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik said: It is in all our interests to find a model for scientific publication that serves research excellence. We are ready to work with readers, authors, publishers, and funding bodies to develop such a model. It was not the intent of this study to replicate the voluminous existing literature but to focus upon the state of the art. In the balance, this report does a good job of not hammering us over the head with things that are already well-known and well-reported. However, this is not a frothy report, and the analysis in this 100-page document is from an economic perspective. This report even tackled the thorny issue of long-term preservation, which is largely absent from many other discussions. The report acknowledged that much of the scientific research conducted in Europe is publicly funded and hence recommended that access to such research should be guaranteed. The report contains numerous recommendations; there are too many to be listed here. But some are noteworthy because they validate other proposals or offer new insights into mechanisms for guiding the future of scholarly research. The first recommendation is: Guarantee public access to publicly-funded research shortly after publication. Note that the following actions could be taken at the European level: Establish a European policy mandating published articles arising from EC-funded research to be available after a given time period in open access archives. Secondly, explore with Member States and with European research and academic associations whether and how such policies and open repositories could be implemented. Next, the report encouraged that there be a level-playing field so that different business models in publishing can compete fairly in the market. It seems desirable to allow for experimentation and competition between various possible business models. The report noted that monies should be allocated to libraries to subscribe to reader or library-pay journals but also to authors to pay for publication costs in author-pay journals, and to researchers in the reader-pay model. The report also recommended that ranking of journal quality be raised beyond scientific quality, stritco sensu. While citation counts should remain the dominant criterion, dimensions related to the quality of dissemination (self-archiving authorization, publisher archiving provisions, copyright provisions, abstracting and indexing services, reference linking, etc.) could be tracked explicitly and possibly valued by research funding bodies. Another recommendation is to guarantee perennial access to scholarly journal digital archives by promoting the creation of not-for-profit long-term preservation archives which balance interests among publishers, libraries, and scholars. To this end, the report encourages an investigation into the feasibility/desirability of creating a European preservation organization that would be JSTOR-like. The report recommended the promotion of pro-competitive pricing strategies, noting that the limited savings that libraries obtain for canceling subscriptions does make it hard for newcomers to have access to library budgets. It is suggested that simple rules could be followed. For example, the price of electronic access should not depend on the historical number of print subscriptions but instead should be related to transparent indicators, like usage or the number of faculty [and] students, as is the case for JSTOR. In addition, the development of electronic publications should be promoted by eliminating the unfavorable tax treatment of electronic publications by either reducing the VAT rate or introducing a tax refund. The differences in VAT rates applied to print versus electronic journals induced a bias in the libraries decisions to continue subscribing to print journals, along with the electronic version. The authors noted that the higher rate applied to electronic delivery of information in Europe strongly affects European research institutions, especially when compared to other countries where electronic services are exempt from tax. Furthermore, public funding and public-private partnerships should be formed to create journal digital archives in areas when there is little commercial interest, such as in the social sciences and the humanities. The report also strongly favored the development of open access archives, noting that they provide immediate, free, and maximal access to research results, whether published or not, to anyone with an Internet connection. And, those institutional repositories contribute to raise the profile of the institutions, making their research output visible and accessible, and provide a potential research assessment tool. In turn, this enhanced visibility and accessibility may lead to higher citation, noting that recent studies show that open access increases impact. However, there are concerns about the archival quality of the open access archives. Observing that the installation costs are low, the maintenance costs are more difficult to plan, as they will vary with the number of records, and the long term preservation purposes. Specific actions at the European level to improve visibility include establish[ing] a European policy mandating articles funded from European sources to be available in open access archives, for instance by mean of authors self-archiving. Also, there is a need to specify standards that will insure that the archives are [accessible], interoperable, and have cross-searching facilities. In addition, set up a general European archive for researchers with access to a subject-based or institutional archive. The European Commission is keen to hear the views of all interested parties. It is therefore calling for reactions to the study and contributions on other issues linked to scientific publications. Contributions should be sent to rtd-scientific-publication(a)cec.eu.int by June 1, 2006. The study and its public feedback will be at the center of a conference on scientific publication to be held in autumn 2006. SINAPSE, the Web interface between the scientific community and Europes policymakers, will also host a debate on the subject. (See the SINAPSE Web site at http://europa.eu.int/sinapse http://europa.eu.int/sinapse .) The study, entitled Study on the economic and technical evolution of the scientific publication markets in Europe, is available for downloading at http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publicati… http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publicati… . Robin Peek is associate professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College. She is also writes the Focus on Publishing column for Information Today . She can be reached at mailto:robin.peek@simmons.edu robin.peek(a)simmons.edu .

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A LIBRI article on OA
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 12 Apr '06

12 Apr '06

Friends: An article in LIBRI, Vol. 56, No. 1, March 2006 questions the value of OA to developing country scientists. Here is the abstract of the article, followed by my response. "The Other Side of the Coin for Open Access Publishing - A Developing Country View" by JENNIFER PAPIN-RAMCHARAN AND RICHARD A DAWE Abstract. This article presents the Open Access publishing experience of researchers in an academic research institution, in a developing country, Trinidad and Tobago, namely at the University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine Campus. It considers UWI researchers' knowledge of Open Access, their access to the scholarly literature, Open Access Archives/Repositories at UWI and related issues of Research and Library funding and Information Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructure/ Internet connectivity. The article concludes that whilst Open Access publishing yields some obvious and well-documented benefits for developing country researchers, including free access to research articles and increased impact and visibility of "published" Open Access articles, there are some disincentives that militate against developing country researchers fully contributing to the global body of knowledge via Open Access. It finds that Open Access Journals are beneficial for scholars who consume information but are of little benefit for developing country scholars wanting to publish in these journals because of the high cost of page charges. Inadequate and unreliable ICT infrastructure and Internet connectivity also often limit access to information. It concludes that because of technical, financial, human and infrastructural limitations, Open Access via the Green Road of self-archiving is also often not an option for developing country researchers. These researchers are therefore unable to reap the real benefits, of making their research Open Access, that of increased impact and visibility. This study is to develop and evaluate methods and instruments for assessing the usability of digital libraries. It discusses the dimensions of usability, what methods have been applied in evaluating usability of digital libraries, their applicability, and criteria. It is found in the study that there exists an interlocking relationship among effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. It provides operational criteria for effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, and learnability. It discovers users' criteria on "ease of use," "organization of information," "terminology and labeling," "visual attractiveness," and "mistake recovery." Common causes of "user lostness" were found. "Click cost" was examined. Arun's response. 1. Not all OA journals charge author side publication fees. PLoS and BMC do charge author fees. But the majority of OA journals do not charge authors. Not a single Indian OA journal charges authors, for example. In most cases, even those journals which charge authors exempt authors from developing countries if the authors make a request to waive the fees. 2. There are technical problems - such as low bandwidths and high costs, I agree. But things are improving. Moore's law is making it possible to bring down the costs of both computers and connectivity. We have seen dramatic improvements in India in the past two decades. When I was in the university, people had to wait for years to get a telephone connection and even pay bribes! But Mr Sam Pitroda made it possible for us to have STD telephone booths in every town and most villages. The advent of many private players in the telecom sector and the independent telecom regulatory authority made it possible to bring down the costs of telephone calls. Mnay higher educational institutions and research labs have reasonable Internet access. Surely there is scope for improvement, but the situation is not bad. 3. What we need are people who will not throw up their hands when faced with even minor challenges. People who will work hard to achieve what they think is good for them. If OA is inherently goodfor science, scholarship and education in the developing world, then we should all work towards achieving it. We need people who can talk to their Ministers and policymakers about the need to adopt OA in a big way and explain why. We need people who can impress upon their governments the need to provide high bandwidth Internet access to higher education and research institutes. We need teachers and librarians who can take advantage of all that is good and available free on the Net such as the Open Course Ware (of MIT and other universities) and all the OAI-compliant archives. We need people who can motivate scientists and doctoral students to adopt the culture of OA in a big way. About a century ago USA was a large territory with no notable scientific achievement. By the Second World War the USA became a formidable powerhouse of scientific research. If USA can do it, the rest of us can do it too. Let us try. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]

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Attracting youth to science - the UK example
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 11 Apr '06

11 Apr '06

Friends: If India is to become a knowledge society we need to build our S&T enterprise. To do that we need to attract our bright young students to take up science and engineering courses. In Britain the RCUK is doing something about attracting youth to science. We may adopt it in India. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ----------------------- Research Councils launch strategy for science in society The eight UK Research Councils today publish their joint Science in Society strategy. The strategy document and accompanying highlights booklet, available at: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/sis/strategy.htm, outline both the Research Councils achievements of embedding science in society within their activities, and their plans for the future. Professor Ian Diamond, Chair of Research Councils UK, said: "The Research Councils invest large amounts of public money in research that affects everyones lives. By working together to actively engage with the public, who ultimately pay for the research we fund, we aim to raise awareness of science and innovation and find out what matters to them. The Research Councils have been at the forefront of science in society activities for many years and we plan to build on these achievements in the future." The science in society strategy consists of four strands, which provide a framework for the Research Councils to work together: finding out what people think; reaching young people and teachers; encouraging researchers to engage with the public and keeping people informed and up-to-date. The highlights booklet also details particularly successful projects and profiles some of the individuals who are the public face of research in the UK. The new faces of UK research include people such as 27 year-old Tim Gabriel. Tim is a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Huddersfield and a member of a team that aims to enthuse 14-18 years in science and engineering. Tim commented: "I can make young people sit up by putting what they learn at school in a different, fun way, and showing them how to enjoy the real chemistry which is often buried beneath the stereotypes of Bunsen burners and white coats." Professor Diamond added, "This strategy highlights the importance of the Research Councils UK Science in Society Unit which, by providing a gateway to the science in society activities and managing cross-council programmes is underpinning the individual work within each Council."

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Science in the UK
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 11 Apr '06

11 Apr '06

Friends: UK is doing well in science, says a recent report commissioned by the Office of Science and Technology. Especially in biology and health it is doing better than USA (if adjusted for investments made). Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ---------------------- Research Councils welcome new report on high impact of UK research A new report on the performance of the UK research base has today shown that in some areas the impact of UK research has surpassed the United States. This represents a clear indication of the high impact of UK research according to the Research Councils, who together invest over £2.5 billion a year in research. The PSA metrics data report, commissioned by the Office of Science and Technology, shows that relative to investment in research the UK produces around 9 per cent of the worlds PhDs and papers and achieves 12 per cent of the worlds academic citations. Research productivity within the UK research community is the highest of any G8 country and ranks third globally. In 2004, the UK had the highest citation impact in biology and health. Professor Julia Goodfellow, speaking on behalf of Research Councils UK, the strategic partnership of the eight Councils, said: "I am very pleased to see that the impact of UK research is not only very high but in terms of our proportion of global citations, it is also rising. Biology and medicine are both outstanding highlights but across the board UK research is delivering high impact results for the investment being made." "However, we must make sure that we are not complacent. For example Germany has more PhD students, and we have to be aware of the obvious rise of China. It is important that both Government and private sector investment in research and development grows in the future and we invest in growing capacity in areas where we currently have skills shortages," Professor Goodfellow warned. The full report PSA target metrics for the UK research base, is available from the Office of Science of Technology: http://www.ost.gov.uk/research/funding/psa_metrics_report.pdf

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GLIC Invitation
by prafulla tv 11 Apr '06

11 Apr '06

Invitation Library Founding Committee, Gundrampally extends a hearty welcome to you to the inauguration of Gundrampally Library and Information Centre (GLIC) on Friday, April 14, 2006 at 8.30 am at Gundrampally Shri Chukka Ramaiah garu, eminent educationist, has kindly consented to declare open the library. Shri Gade Vinod Reddy garu, Chairman, Zilla Granthalaya Samstha, Nalgonda district, would light the lamp. This function would be graced by several peoples representatives and officials such as Shri Cherkupally Chandraiah garu, Sarpanch, Gundrampally, Shri A. Dayakara Reddy garu, Vice Chairman, DCMS, Nalgonda, Shri Banda Kishtaiah garu, Vice President, Mandala Parishat, Chityal, Shri Muralidhar garu, MEO, Chityal, Shri M. Manoj Kumar garu, Secretary, Zilla Granthalaya Samstha, Nalgonda and Shri Venkateshwar Reddy garu, SI, Chityal. Two eminent teachers, namely Professor N. Laxman Rao garu, Ph.D. (Department of Library & Information Science, Osmania University, Hyderabad) and Professor V. Chandrasekhara Rao garu, Ph.D. (Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences & Professor, Department of Library and Information Science, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad) would be participating in this meeting as special invitees and address the gathering. GLIC is the first library that is coming up under the 100 Village/School Libraries project launched by the Organization for the Protection of Libraries, a library advocacy group based in Hyderabad. Dr. A Kishore garu, President of OPLib, its other office bearers and library workers of OPLib would also be attending this function. An Appeal We are happy to inform you that Shri L.S. Venkatesh garu, General Manager, Edutech India Pvt Ltd, Chennai had donated an amount of Rs.5000 towards the establishment of GLIC. Library Founding Committee expresses its grateful thanks to Shri Venkatesh garu for his generosity which was instrumental in speeding up the process of establishing this library. We appeal to all library lovers to donate generously for strengthening this library. The immediate requirements of GLIC are: 1. Steel book racks 2. Reading tables/chairs 3. Development of good book collection consisting of classic works in Telugu literature 4. Development of reference books collection (dictionaries, encyclopaedias, directories, GK books, etc.) 5. 2-3 computer systems for introducing internet-based information services and for training the people on internet searching. If your donations are communicated to us by April 13, 2006, that would help us to announce the same in the inaugural function. ________________________________________________________________________ We extend a hearty welcome to one and all to the inaugural function of GLIC! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Microsoft's service to compete with Google Scholar
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

>From Peter Suber's blog: Microsoft Academic Search coming tomorrow The buzz has already started (1, 2, 3, 4), for tomorrow's release of Microsoft Academic Search, which will crawl academic journals, databases, and repositories. Peter Suber comments: I was one of many people Microsoft consulted about MAS. Don't think clone of Google Scholar. Think rival in the same space, competition that should --eventually-- crawl more content and offer more services to users.

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OA at CERN, Geneva
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

Congratulations to CERN, Geneva, and its OA champions. Arun ----- >From Peter Suber's blog: Profile of the CERN librarians Heather Morrison, The CERN Library Team: an OA Inspiration! OA Librarian, April 9, 2006. The latest installment of Heather's celebration of librarians who work for OA. Excerpt: CERN - the worlds largest particle physics laboratory and birthplace of the World Wide Web, and the CERN Library Team - currently led by Jens Vigen, has been a leader in the open dissemination of scientific results since its inception decades ago. CERNs free distribution of preprints in paper format has evolved with the technologies available, from FTP to World Wide Web distribution, to the current OAI-compliant CERN Document Server (CDS). If any discipline could afford to rest on its OA laurels, you would think it would be physics! The CERN Library Team, however, is not resting on its laurels at all, but continues to lead the way, from OA via self-archiving to a current push towards full OA publishing (and self-archiving, too). Accomplishments of the CERN library team include: [1] The CDS - CERN Document Server repository - as of April 9, 2006, CDS contains over 800,000 bibliographic records, including 360,000 fulltext documents, of interest to people working in particle physics and related areas. A whole team of hard working people have concentrated on this, filling it, harvesting, programming, scanning, managing, etc. [2] Organising (along with LIBER, SPARC, SPARC Europe, OSI and the OAI) - and hosting the OAI Workshops, one of the worlds major gathering-points for the open access archiving community....[3] High Energy Physics (HEP) Libraries Webzine (an OA publication).... CERN is now on at the least the third OA policy revision, which addresses OA journals. In 2005, the focus at CERN library was changing publication model meetings. That is, CERN - and its library - are leading the way once more in physics, to move from OA via self-archiving to full OA via OA publishing (and self-archiving too)....There are some details about CERN Library's OA history in the presentation, CERN Document Server Software: The Integrated Digital Library. For the latest on CERN librarys OA leadership, have a look at the SPARC Open Access Forum Archives - look for the thread, CERNs Historic Role in OA. CERNs Joanne Yeomans, for example, talks about current developments, including a basket (for creating ones own bibliographies) and rating system....

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[Fwd: [BOAI] Increasing Institutional Repository Content with
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: [BOAI] Increasing Institutional Repository Content with "email eprint" Button From: "Timothy Miles-Board" <tmb(a)ecs.soton.ac.uk> Date: Mon, April 10, 2006 6:11 pm To: "AmSci Forum" <american-scientist-open-access-forum(a)amsci.org> Cc: EuroscienceOA(a)lists.sopinspace.net JISC-REPOSITORIES(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** Apologies for Cross-Posting ** A new feature has been built into the GNU EPrints (free) software for creating Institutional Repositories (IRs). We hope it will dramatically increase the growth rate of open access (OA) content deposited in IRs while -- perversely it may seem -- allowing authors to opt out of providing OA! It's extremely simple, and if implemented carefully by the repository can produce immediate results without additional cost or resource implications. http://www.eprints.org/news/features/request_button.php (Eloy Rodrigues, the dynamic OA activist at University of Minho in Portugal https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/ has kindly implemented the feature in Dspace too, and will be announcing its availability for testing very shortly.) This new feature is called the "Request eprint" button. It works like this: To deposit a work using EPrints an author creates a record for the eprint by filling metadata fields in the repository deposit interface. Ideally we would of course like the eprint to be both deposited *and* made OA. However, not all authors are yet comfortable with this, so rather than have authors refrain from depositing their eprints altogether, EPrints offers authors the option of either: (1) making the eprint OA, or (2) restricting full-text visibility to designated viewers, with only its metadata visible publicly, or (3) making the full-text completely invisible, with only its metadata visible publicly (although the full-text is still stored in the system). There are a number of reasons for allowing this flexibility. One of the main hesitations authors have about providing OA -- even though 93% of journals have already given it their official green light http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php -- is author worries about infringing their copyright agreement with the remaining 7% of journals. Institutions contemplating adopting self-archiving mandates have similar concerns. So far, none of this is new. The key need of the repository in terms of growing content is to persuade authors (or their designees) to perform the requisite keystrokes, i.e. to simply *deposit* the metadata and the eprint, without prejudice as to what else might be done with it. Once those all-important data are deposited, we can start to work with the author to maximise its usefulness and usage. This is where the "Request eprint" button comes in. Whenever record of a stored eprint tells a would-be user that an OA version of the full text copy is not accessible, a dialogue box appears inviting the user to paste in their email address and send a request to the author for a copy of the paper. This request is emailed automatically to the author, offering three choices in return: to email the requested eprint, to reject the request, or to make the eprint OA in the repository. Since the requested eprint is already in the repository, and merely invisible, a simple process enables the author to make a selection and activate that choice with a single click. This is simple for requesters, authors, repository implementers and policy makers as it allows them a full range of choices without any implications for the usual worries that otherwise deter or delay this type of dissemination. In particular, there are no implications for copyright. This furthers the objectives of increasing deposit and dissemination through the repository by reducing barriers and fears. It also gives authors valuable feedback on the degree of interest in their work (requests are counted, just as downloads of OA eprints are counted, and the statistics made available to the author). How might this affect growth of your repository? It is generally estimated that institutional repositories are capturing 15% of the annual articles that could be made OA today. There is thus an 85% gap to fill. There have been many hypotheses about the reasons for the slowness of authors in filling this gap. The "Request eprint" button enables us to overcome most of these concerns. It gives even authors who are wary of self-archiving the chance to begin depositing in their institutional repository, it improves access - even if it is not immediately OA it is better than no record at all - and it offers the prospect of conversion to OA when authors realise the level of interest in their work. This feature also makes it possible to implement the "weaker" model for an official Open Access Policy, both institutionally: http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html and nationally: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/weaker-OApolicy.htm ---- This message was adapted from Steve Hitchcock's text at: http://www.eprints.org/news/features/request_button.php

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PhD in LIS
by Mailing List Manager 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:20:45 +0530 From: Jeetender Chandna <granthpal(a)gmail.com> Hello Friends I have just completed my MLIS from IGNOU with 58% I am looking at pursuing my PhD in LIS with the broad topic of Open Source and its impact on the LIS profession in India. What I would like is to get some guidelines and ideas from the senior and esteemed members of the LIS fora. In particularly suggestions related to the following aspects would be gladly received -- 1) Recommendation of institutions where this PhD work could be undertaken, keeping in mind that the broad IDS-Inter Disciplinary Subject is Computer Science 2) Recommendations of persons who are experts in the Open Source Movement. 3) Any suggestions to bibliographic resources for the same I thanking in advance for the help given by the fora-members. NOTE: Since such recommendations and suggestions are personal opinions, it leaves the room open for debate. Ergo, I request that solutions/suggestions be mailed to me directly at granthpal(a)gmail.com. I would be glad to summarise the findings for the forum. -- Regards Granthpal ---------------------------------------- Jeetender Chandna aka Vicky aka Granthpal Esha News Monitoring Services Pvt Ltd 10th Floor, Krushal Commercial Complex Chembur (W) Mumbai 400089 Tel: (91-22) 3245 2861 Email: granthpal(a)gmail.com

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EBSCO introduces Free Teacher Reference Center
by Mallikarjun 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

Dear professional After the success of LISTA,EBSCO launches Teacher Reference Center (TRC) - Journal Information for K-12 Teachers & Librarians This index of over 260 titles from the most popular teacher and administrator trade journals, periodicals, and books is now also offered free via the EBSCOhost platform. This database provides coverage on key education topics such as Assessment, Continuing Education, Current Pedagogical Research, Curriculum Development, Instructional Media, Language Arts, Literacy.Standards, Science & Mathematics, and more. For more information ,please visit http://www.libraryresearch.com Mallikarjun Dora Library and information Assistant(Trainee) Library and Information Center Indian Institute of Management,Kozhikode IIMK Campus, P.O Kozhikode-673571 Kerala contact-+91-495-2809143 Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com Dear professional After the success of LISTA,EBSCO launches Teacher Reference Center (TRC) - Journal Information for K-12 Teachers & Librarians This index of over 260 titles from the most popular teacher and administrator trade journals, periodicals, and books is now also offered free via the EBSCO host platform. This database provides coverage on key education topics such as Assessment, Continuing Education, Current Pedagogical Research, Curriculum Development, Instructional Media, Language Arts, Literacy.Standards, Science & Mathematics, and more. For more information ,please visit http://www.libraryresearch.com http://www.libraryresearch.com Mallikarjun Dora Library and information Assistant(Trainee) Library and Information Center Indian Institute of Management,Kozhikode IIMK Campus, P.O Kozhikode-673571 Kerala contact-+91-495-2809143 Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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Information literacy - promotion through libraries
by Subbiah Arunachalam 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

Friends: Achieving high level of information litearcy is one of the things the National Knowledge Commission and the LIS community should be greatly concerned about. I mean information litearcy at all levels - the lay public, the school children, college and university students, professionals and researchers. Which means libraries at all levels - public libraries, school and college libraries, university libraries, research and special libraries - should be sensitised to promoting information literacy. In today's world information litearcy is intertwined with information technology and Web literacy. Information literacy is especially important in today's India where we are producing graduates in large numbers but it is felt taht a very large percent of them are unemployable. I would like to alert you to an article in a recent issue of Journal of Information Science which talks about information literacy in a lucid way: Thomas P Mackey and Jinwon Ho: Implementing a convergent model for information literacy: Combining research and web literacy, J Info Sci, Vol. 31, No. 6, 2005, pp.541-555. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] Friends: Achieving high level of information litearcy is one of the things the National Knowledge Commission and the LIS community should be greatly concerned about. I mean information litearcy at all levels - the lay public, the school children, college and university students, professionals and researchers. Which means libraries at all levels - public libraries, school and college libraries, university libraries, research and special libraries - should be sensitised to promoting information literacy. In today's world information litearcy is intertwined with information technology and Web literacy. Information literacy is especially important in today's India where we are producing graduates in large numbers but it is felt taht a very large percent of them are unemployable. I would like to alert you to an article in a recent issue of Journal of Information Science which talks about information literacy in a lucid way: Thomas P Mackey and Jinwon Ho: Implementing a convergent model for information literacy: Combining research and web literacy, J Info Sci , Vol. 31 , No. 6, 2005, pp.541-555. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]

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Fw: ECDL 2006 Doctoral Consortium
by Subbiah Arunachalam 10 Apr '06

10 Apr '06

=== ECDL 2006 Doctoral Consortium - Deadline 22 April === ECDL 2006, The European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, will feature a Doctoral Consortium to give doctoral students the opportunity to discuss their work with experienced researchers from the Digital Library Community as also with other students. Attendance at the Doctoral Consortium will be based on an acceptance of a written abstract, of up to 6 pages, singly authored by the student. Submissions must be done in PDF format, following the layout guidelines for the LNCS format provided by Springer (please see http://www.ecdl2006.org/) followed by a free supporting statement from the adviser. Deadline for submission is 22 April, to be sent by email to doctoral_consortium(a)ecdl2006.org. Accepted students will have to deliver a full paper, which will be published electronically in a special issue of the bulletin of the IEEE TCDL - Technical Committee for Digital Libraries. The students will be able to present also a poster at the ECDL 2006 poster session. The full papers will be reviewed by senior scientists who will be also present in the Doctoral Consortium meeting, where the students will receive feedback about their work and will have a chance to participate in an open discussion. The paper will be the basis for detailed discussions at the Consortium. To get the most out of the discussion it should include: * motivation for the proposed research * background and related work (with key references) * description of proposed research including main research questions, research methodology and proposed experiments (where appropriate) * particular issues which you want to highlight for discussion. All submissions will be reviewed by the Doctoral Consortium Program Committee, with respect to overall quality of presentation, the potential for future impact of the proposed PhD research on the field of Digital Libraries, and the likely benefit to the student of attending the Consortium. More details are available at http://www.ecdl2006.org/consortium.jsp ===================================================== Doctoral Consortium Chairs Jose Borbinha (INESC-ID / IST, Lisbon Technical University, Portugal) Lillian Cassel (Villanova University, USA) ===================================================== @page Section1 {size: 595.3pt 841.9pt; margin: 70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm; } P.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman" } LI.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman" } DIV.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman" } A:link { COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline } SPAN.MsoHyperlink { COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline } A:visited { COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline } SPAN.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline } SPAN.estilocorreioelectrnico17 { COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial } SPAN.estilocorreioelectrnico18 { COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial } SPAN.estilocorreioelectrnico19 { COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial } SPAN.estilocorreioelectrnico20 { COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial } SPAN.EstiloCorreioElectrnico21 { COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial } DIV.Section1 { page: Section1 } === ECDL 2006 Doctoral Consortium - Deadline 22 April === ECDL 2006, The European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, will feature a Doctoral Consortium to give doctoral students the opportunity to discuss their work with experienced researchers from the Digital Library Community as also with other students. Attendance at the Doctoral Consortium will be based on an acceptance of a written abstract, of up to 6 pages, singly authored by the student. Submissions must be done in PDF format, following the layout guidelines for the LNCS format provided by Springer (please see http://www.ecdl2006.org/) followed by a free supporting statement from the adviser. Deadline for submission is 22 April, to be sent by email to doctoral_consortium(a)ecdl2006.org. Accepted students will have to deliver a full paper, which will be published electronically in a special issue of the bulletin of the IEEE TCDL - Technical Committee for Digital Libraries. The students will be able to present also a poster at the ECDL 2006 poster session. The full papers will be reviewed by senior scientists who will be also present in the Doctoral Consortium meeting, where the students will receive feedback about their work and will have a chance to participate in an open discussion. The paper will be the basis for detailed discussions at the Consortium. To get the most out of the discussion it should include: * motivation for the proposed research * background and related work (with key references) * description of proposed research including main research questions, research methodology and proposed experiments (where appropriate) * particular issues which you want to highlight for discussion. All submissions will be reviewed by the Doctoral Consortium Program Committee, with respect to overall quality of presentation, the potential for future impact of the proposed PhD research on the field of Digital Libraries, and the likely benefit to the student of attending the Consortium. More details are available at http://www.ecdl2006.org/consortium.jsp ===================================================== Doctoral Consortium Chairs Jose Borbinha (INESC-ID / IST, Lisbon Technical University, Portugal) Lillian Cassel (Villanova University, USA) =====================================================

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Clarifications from Prof. Stevan Harnad
by Subbiah Arunachalam 08 Apr '06

08 Apr '06

Friends: A few minutes ago I forwarded a message from Prof. Stevan Harnad addressed to me and Prof. Krishnaswamy of MKU to the oa-india and lis-forum lists. Here is a message from Prof. Harnad about depositing papers in OA archives. Certainly Prof. Harnad would not advocate violating the law. Best wishes. Arun ----- Dear Arun, Sure, that's fine. But could I ask then that you modify (2) to add that I do not myself recommend 3rd-party posting without authorization? Otherwise it gives the impression that I am recommending breaking the law. Point (3) should also be modified for public posting, to make it clear that the author (*only*), if he no longer has the digital text of his own article, can scan in and OCR the published PDF for his own article, but should then convert it back to his own original typescript. The way I said it below makes it look as if I am advocating piracy, which I am not. Best wishes. Stevan Friends: A few minutes ago I forwarded a message from Prof. Stevan Harnad addressed to me and Prof. Krishnaswamy of MKU to the oa-india and lis-forum lists. Here is a message from Prof. Harnad about depositing papers in OA archives. Certainly Prof. Harnad would not advocate violating the law. Best wishes. Arun ----- Dear Arun, Sure, that's fine. But could I ask then that you modify (2) to add that I do not myself recommend 3rd-party posting without authorization? Otherwise it gives the impression that I am recommending breaking the law. Point (3) should also be modified for public posting, to make it clear that the author (*only*), if he no longer has the digital text of his own article, can scan in and OCR the published PDF for his own article, but should then convert it back to his own original typescript. The way I said it below makes it look as if I am advocating piracy, which I am not. Best wishes. Stevan

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Lecture invitation
by SRELS 08 Apr '06

08 Apr '06

Dear Moderator, Kindly arrange to annouce the following lecture invitation to the lis-forum members. Thanking you, Yours truly, K.N. Prasad Executive Officer Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science 702, 42nd Cross, III Block, Rajajinagar Bangalore 560 010. Ph: 080-23305019; e-mail: srels(a)vsnl.com ********* Prof. M.R. Kumbahr Memorial Lectures Committee, Bangalore cordially invites you to the Prof. M.R. Kumbhar Memorial Lectures (12) (2006) on CLASSIFICATION MODELLING OF HOMOGENOUS RETRIEVAL OF INFORMATION by Dr. M.A. Gopinath Visiting Professor, North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina, USA 0n Sunday, 16th April 2006 at 6.00 pm Dr. K.S. Raghavan Professor, Documentation Research & Training Centre Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore presides at Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science 702, 'Upstairs', 42nd Cross, (near Syndicate Bank) III Block, Rajajinagar, Bangalore 560 010 Dear Moderator, Kindly arrange to annouce the following lecture invitation to the lis-forum members. Thanking you, Yours truly, K.N. Prasad Executive Officer Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science 702, 42nd Cross, III Block, Rajajinagar Bangalore 560 010. Ph: 080-23305019; e-mail: srels(a)vsnl.com ********* Prof. M.R. Kumbahr Memorial Lectures Committee, Bangalore cordially invites you to the Prof. M.R. Kumbhar Memorial Lectures (12) (2006) on CLASSIFICATION MODELLING OF HOMOGENOUS RETRIEVAL OF INFORMATION by Dr. M.A. Gopinath Visiting Professor, North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina, USA 0n Sunday, 16th April 2006 at 6.00 pm Dr. K.S. Raghavan Professor, Documentation Research & Training Centre Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore presides at Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science 702, 'Upstairs', 42nd Cross, (near Syndicate Bank) III Block, Rajajinagar, Bangalore 560 010

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Municipal broadband networks
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 07 Apr '06

07 Apr '06

Friends: Are there cities (towns) in the developing world pursuing Municipal broadband networks so all citizens can access the Internet? Can such networks help bridge the digital and other divides? Arun ---- NEWS Broadband provision a municipal duty, says report >From "400 Cities Worldwide Planning To Deploy Municipal Broadband Networks," Wi-Fi Technology News, 27 January: "There are over 400 cities worldwide planning to deploy municipal broadband networks and the number will double in 2006, making community broadband initiatives a very real and significant trend. That is the finding of the latest report, Municipal Broadband Networks: Market impact and implications, 2006-2011, published by industry research firm visiongain. "Despite legal opposition and intense lobbying from incumbent telcos and cable companies, municipal broadband is coming and is here to stay. As of Q1 2006, there are over 100 city and regional wireless broadband networks operational worldwide, more than 40 of which are in the US. "Small town rural deployments were the beginning of the wave, but the tide is now embracing large urban metropolises. New York, San Francisco, Rome and Paris are among the major cities planning wide-scale deployments. While these networks present yet another new competitive threat to the broadband market landscape, there are opportunities to be grasped for service providers, whether fixed-line or wireless, if these companies play their cards right. Major vendors, such as Motorola, Cisco, HP and IBM are already reaping cumulative contract awards running into hundreds of millions of dollars. " 'Generally speaking, we believe resistance towards Muni networks is futile,' says lead author Pam Duffey. 'Finer points of the debate aside, it is fast becoming a city or state government duty to provide at least the means for widespread broadband service to the citizenry. By 2010/2011, we believe the majority of cities and townships in the US will have a municipal wireless network in place and the focus then will be in uniting them into a seamless, if not centralised, national network.' " 'New and emerging applications such as digital libraries, virtual laboratories, distance-independent learning and tele-immersion will require broadband speeds and reverse the digital divide. In addition, applications such as LBS and gaming over city-wide networks could seriously threaten existing carrier business models,' adds Duffey. "For a large number of reasons, municipalities are considering the concept of a Municipal Broadband Network as the 'fifth utility.' These communities are choosing between deploying fibre and a wireless broadband network using Wi-Fi hotspots, mesh networks or pre-WiMAX technology. There will be a significant build-out, blending technologies and building on existing service, both wired and unwired. "However, many technological and business factors need to be considered, any one of which can better or worsen the outcome for any given municipality. Often, cities lack sufficient experience and knowledge of technologies to make the best choices and compound the problem further by inadequately funding the effort or by employing a business model that can not sustain the endeavor. "This report examines the various technology options open to communities in deploying broadband networks, as well as the business models, assessing the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. It looks at case studies of successful and failed initiatives, identifying and outlining the reasons behind them. The impact that these networks have had and will have on local markets and incumbent operators are also analysed..." [Muni Wireless: 28 January 2006]

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WiFi in the $100 laptop of Negroponte
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 07 Apr '06

07 Apr '06

Friends: I received this news today and I want to share it with you. Best wishes. Arun ---- NEWS $100 laptop includes WiFi >From "One-Wireless-Laptop-Per-Child Founder Negroponte Resigns from MIT," by Brian White, The Wireless Report, 16 February: "As many readers can probably tell, the word 'Wireless' was slipped into the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) phrase in the title above. With Nicholas Negroponte stepping down from MIT's famed Media Lab yesterday to concentrate on his 'One Laptop Per Child' iniative, I have to give it up to the man - following his real passion and dream of connecting every child possible to the world, each other, and global informaton - to empower them to create and fulfill their dreams. And, for many, to escape knowledge repression and to rise up to what they all could be. I applaud the man greatly, even if the OLPC initiative fails or is slow to gain strength. "The one 'killer app' in this whole initiative is the inclusion of WiFi in these hand-cranked $100 laptops. Enabling villages and small towns (and big towns) to form WiFi mesh networks is the glue that will make this all work. Interconnection and sharing is the linchpin of such an effort and even as WiFi gains on wired connections in the developed world as a preferred connection method for the internet, it will be the only connection method for under-developed nations to breach their own 'digital divide' and connect and interact with the rest of the world. Some of Negroponte's MIT associates are also following him to his OLPC non-profit to assist, which speaks even more highly of this highly-regarded initiative." _________ [On 12 February 2006, OLPC announced that Mark Foster, former head of portable computer engineering at Apple, has joined the project. Foster was responsible for developing the first high-volume wireless networking product, the AirPort. The "$100 Laptop FAQ" confirms that "The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network."] [WiFi: 17 February 2006]

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Openomy Online File System
by sandeep bhavsar 07 Apr '06

07 Apr '06

Openomy Online File System http://openomy.com/ Openomy is an online file system. You can store files on Openomy and access them from any computer. Openomy organizes files and users via tags (as opposed to folders). You can choose to keep your files guarded by Openomy, or allow certain outside applications (of your choice) to do new and interesting things with your data. Currently, all storage is 1gb. The plan is to increase this in the future. Let us know what you think is fair. Openomy is completely free for now. In the future there will be an additional premium membership, in exchange for some nice extras. The APIs (i.e. creating applications) are also completely free to use, but a similar structure may one day appear as well. This would likely be limited to commercial applications. Thanks and Regards Sandeep Bhavsar Librarian Dr.V.N.BRIMS Thane (w) 400601 ------------------------------ Phone (Off) 25364492 25446554 Mobile 9870484626 email sandeep(a)vpmthane.org Website www.vpmthane.org ------------------------------ ___________________________________________________________ Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now. http://www.yahoo.co.uk/blackberry

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Prevention of loss of books in the college library
by js vijaya 07 Apr '06

07 Apr '06

Dear Friends, Give some suggestions to prevent the loss of books in the college library. Especially for the reference section. Waiting for your valuable suggestions. Regards Vijayalakshmi J S __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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SALIS Awards for the year 2006 - nomination invited - reg
by Arunachalam Hariharan 07 Apr '06

07 Apr '06

Nominations are invited for the following SALIS Awards for the year 2006. SALIS Awards 1. Dr. Harish Chandra-Sushila Chandra Best Librarian Award (National level) ------------------------------------------------------ SALIS instituted an award- sponsored by Dr. Harish Chandra, Librarian, IIT Madras, in the name of `Dr. Harish Chandra-Sushila Chandra Best Librarian Award' . Aim of instituting the award: To honor and recognize library professionals - for their outstanding contributions to the profession. Eligibility: Professionals holding any degree in Library Science or equivalent and working in library and information field in any parts in India. Must be a citizen of India About Dr.Harish Chandra -------------------------- Dr.Harish Chandra is currently working as Librarian of IIT, Madras. Prior to this, he has also worked in IIT, Delhi, GSI and IIFT. He underwent training in Library Automation and Digital Library at University of Cambridge, UK and Tilburg University, Netherlands respectively. His major contributions are in the areas of New Library Building Planning, ISO-9001 application in the Library, Digital Library Initiative, Web based library and information services, etc. Dr.Chandra is a member of Senate, IIT since 1995, a member of Task Force for Higher Education Library System, MHRD. He is also a member in the editorial board of various journals including OCLC Systems and Services. He is also a member of many professional bodies. Dr.Chandra has over 60 publications to his credit and completed various projects and consultancy assignments. He has organized several national and international conferences. He has received several awards, chaired number of technical sessions and delivered number of invited lectures. He has visited more than 12 countries and received several awards. He has also received many awards including SALIS Life Time Achievement Award Previous Year Award winners: 1. Dr. T.A.V. Murthy, Director, INFLIBNET â for the year 2004 2. Prof. (Dr.) M.Suriya, HOD, Dept of Library & Information Science & Librarian, Annamalai University â for the year 2005 --------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------- 2. AutoLib-Tamilnadu Best Librarian Award (for Library Professionals working in Tamilnadu region only) 3. AutoLib -Tamilnadu Best Young Librarian Award (for Library Professionals working in Tamilnadu region only: Age below 40 years) Must be a citizen of India The above two awards are sponsored by M/s AutoLib Software System , a leading Library Automation Solution Provider at Chennai. AutoLib Software System ---------------------------------- AutoLib Software System has been established to provide low cost and high quality library automation solutions. They undertake all types of library automation projects. One of their objectives is to recognize and encourage library professionals who contribute more for the profession. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Eligibility for the above two Awards : Professionals holding any degree in Library Science or equivalent and working in library and information field in Tamilnadu region. Must be a citizen of India Previous Award Winners: 1. AutoLib-Tamilnadu Best Librarian Award Dr Dr.K.Nithyanandham, Director-in-charge, Librray, Anna University 2. AutoLib-Tamilnadu Best Young Librarian Award Mr. T. Stephen CSI Bishop Appasamy College of Arts & Science, Coimbatore Mr. S.Swaminathan, Librarian, Sri Ramakrishna Vidyalaya College of Education, Coimbatore Nominations for all the three awards ( by Library professionals holding responsible position or by self) are invited for the year 2006 from eligible professionals. The application form can be obtained from the Convener, SALIS Award Committee by sending a self addressed stamped (Rs.10/-) cover or downloaded from http://autolib-india.net/salis or by sending E-mail to salisawards(a)yahoo.com. The other details are given in the application form. Filled-in application along with necessary supporting documents should be sent in a sealed cover to The Convener, SALIS Award Committee, SALIS, C/o, AutoLib, B2-Solai Apartments(Opp to MGR Garden) Mount-Poonamallee Road, Chennai - 600 089. Awards will be presented to the winners in the form of a Silver Medal, Citation and a shawl. The awards will be presented to the winners during the SALIS 2006 National Conference to be held at Karunya Deemed University, Coimbatore on 9th June 2006. Last date for the receipt of filled application is 15.05.2006 For any clarifications, E-mail to the convener at salisawards(a)yahoo.com -------------------------------- Mr. Jesudas Manalan Convener SALIS Award Committee & Librarian Bishop Heber College, Trichi â 17 & Secretary, SALIS Tiruchi Chapter __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Fw: [BOAI] 1950 Florence Agreement/ 1976 Nairobi Protocol
by Subbiah Arunachalam 07 Apr '06

07 Apr '06

Please forward this to all the members of the "Kalpana Joshi Committee". Thanks and best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Suber" <peters(a)earlham.edu> To: "BOAI Forum" <boai-forum(a)ecs.soton.ac.uk> Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 8:08 AM Subject: Re: [BOAI] 1950 Florence Agreement/ 1976 Nairobi Protocol > Dear Julia, > > I share your sense that people who support open access will likely support > the enforcement of these agreements. I can't be the only reader who was > glad to learn that world leaders once made sensible agreements like these > and sorry to learn that our current leaders are disregarding them. > > So I hope that simply circulating your letter will have a beneficial > effect, even if small. The readers of this list are OA proponents from > over 100 countries. Many will undoubtedly be inclined to support your > cause even if they rarely have a chance to discuss issues of this kind > with their governments. > > Let me make a two-sided decision as the moderator of the list. On the one > hand, these agreements are a bit far from our topic here. I distributed > your first message with my eyes open because of its strong interest and > distant OA connection, but now that the issue has aired I want to return > the discussion to issues with a stronger OA connection. On the other > hand, if any forum readers learn about international efforts to shore up > support for these agreements, please send information about them to Julie > or me (or both). I'll look for a way to communicate that information > concisely to the OA community. If I don't do it through the BOAI Forum, > then I may do it through the SPARC Open Access Forum, which has a slightly > wider scope. > > Best wishes, > Peter > > > Peter Suber > Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge > Research Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College > peter.suber(a)earlham.edu > > > > At 11:02 PM 4/4/2006, you wrote: > >>Dear Stevan Harnad, >>I am retired and now run a library in Florence which is international and >>ecumenical. It was my own library as a professor and is intended as a gift >>to the world. I cause it to flourish on the principle that people can >>become members through giving it a book rather than paying dues. But most >>gifts to it of books from America are taxed by the Italian Dogana and Post >>Office working in collusion with each other, this money having to come out >>of my slim pocket/pension. The earlier versions of the Budapest Open >>Access Initiative had been UNESCO's 'Florence Agreement' (1950) and its >>Protocol known as the 'Protocol of Nairobi' (1976), which allowed cultural >>materials, books, films, electronic data, etc., to pass across >>international boundaries without paying customs duties. I spoke to this >>issue at the St Petersburg UNESCO Conference in May 2005 on the World >>Summit on the Information Society, where it was said that this constantly >>needs to be remembered and executed. >>Could the BOAI and Berlin Declaration signatories recognize the principle >>in international law, reminding their governments of the 1950 'Florence >>Agreement/Accord de Florence' and of its 1976 Nairobi Protocol? >>Sincerely, >> >>Julia Bolton Holloway, Professor Emerita >>Director, Biblioteca e Bottega Fioretta Mazzei >>'English Cemetery', Piazzale Donatello, 38 >>50132 Florence, Italy juliana(a)tin.it >>http://www.umilta.net http://www.florin.ms >>http://piazzaledonatello.blogspot.com >

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Striking Thirteen - Impact of ISBN13 - full report
by Rajesh Chandrakar 06 Apr '06

06 Apr '06

Dear Professionals, Following article provides very good information on ISBN13. It ellaborates its impact on library, vendors and existing systems. You may go to link for complete details describes with various exmaples. With regards, Rajesh "Striking Thirteen" Library Journal (03/01/06) P. 36 ; Breaux Ann-Marie; Dawson, Laura The forthcoming introduction of 13-digit international standard book numbers (ISBNs) to increase the availability of ISBNs and improve their compliance with worldwide product numbering systems should have librarians, publishers, and booksellers on alert, as the new numbers will have a significant effect on all aspects of library transactions and operations, write YBP Library Services' Ann-Marie Breaux and LJNDawson.com's Laura Dawson. All 10-digit ISBNs will officially switch to ISBN-13s for transaction purposes on Jan. 1, 2007, and every order, claim, and invoice should employ ISBN-13s by that time; booksellers are overhauling their internal and external systems to facilitate ISBN-13 transactions for both publishers and libraries, while system vendors are rewriting software to resolve most transition problems. Breaux and Dawson recommend that librarians bone up on the transitions and be certain their vendors are ready, and inventory all systems and databases to learn the location and manner of ISBN storage and usage, ensuring that a locally programmed or vendor-partner-provided solution is available in every case. Librarians should query their vendors on such issues as whether their databases are both ISBN-10- and ISBN-13-searchable, whether both types of ISBNs are displayed in their databases, changes to electronic invoicing as well as cataloging records or other MARC records supplied by vendors, and whether libraries' electronic ordering, invoicing, or cataloging arrangements must be reevaluated. Systems vendors are relied on by libraries to supply new software releases that support ISBN-13, and librarians need to comprehend the update process for any areas where ISBNs are searched, indexed, and stored, in addition to the acquisitions module. Breaux and Dawson suggest librarians ask system vendors such questions as whether searches accommodate both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13; whether an ISBN-10 and its corresponding ISBN-13 can be recognized by the system as identical for functions such as duplication control, bibliographic record overlay, and federated search results merging; how to order an ISBN-10 title when the vendor desires an ISBN-13; and the handling of electronic data interchange transactions. (Link to Web Source) Dear Professionals, Following article provides very good information on ISBN13. It ellaborates its impact on library, vendors and existing systems. You may go to link for complete details describes with various exmaples. With regards, Rajesh "Striking Thirteen" Library Journal (03/01/06) P. 36 ; Breaux Ann-Marie; Dawson, Laura The forthcoming introduction of 13-digit international standard book numbers (ISBNs) to increase the availability of ISBNs and improve their compliance with worldwide product numbering systems should have librarians, publishers, and booksellers on alert, as the new numbers will have a significant effect on all aspects of library transactions and operations, write YBP Library Services' Ann-Marie Breaux and LJNDawson.com's Laura Dawson. All 10-digit ISBNs will officially switch to ISBN-13s for transaction purposes on Jan. 1, 2007, and every order, claim, and invoice should employ ISBN-13s by that time; booksellers are overhauling their internal and external systems to facilitate ISBN-13 transactions for both publishers and libraries, while system vendors are rewriting software to resolve most transition problems. Breaux and Dawson recommend that librarians bone up on the transitions and be certain their vendors are ready, and inventory all systems and databases to learn the location and manner of ISBN storage and usage, ensuring that a locally programmed or vendor-partner-provided solution is available in every case. Librarians should query their vendors on such issues as whether their databases are both ISBN-10- and ISBN-13-searchable, whether both types of ISBNs are displayed in their databases, changes to electronic invoicing as well as cataloging records or other MARC records supplied by vendors, and whether libraries' electronic ordering, invoicing, or cataloging arrangements must be reevaluated. Systems vendors are relied on by libraries to supply new software releases that support ISBN-13, and librarians need to comprehend the update process for any areas where ISBNs are searched, indexed, and stored, in addition to the acquisitions module. Breaux and Dawson suggest librarians ask system vendors such questions as whether searches accommodate both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13; whether an ISBN-10 and its corresponding ISBN-13 can be recognized by the system as identical for functions such as duplication control, bibliographic record overlay, and federated search results merging; how to order an ISBN-10 title when the vendor desires an ISBN-13; and the handling of electronic data interchange transactions. ( http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6308665.html Link to Web Source )

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Greenstone latest version
by noufal palliparamban 06 Apr '06

06 Apr '06

Dear friends, http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~mdewsnip/greenstone/make-images.html Regards Noufal.P.P --------------------------------- Jiyo cricket on Yahoo! India cricket Yahoo! Messenger Mobile Stay in touch with your buddies all the time. Dear friends, http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~mdewsnip/greenstone/make-images.html http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~mdewsnip/greenstone/make-images.html Regards Noufal.P.P Jiyo cricket on http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/mailcricket/*http://in.sports.yahoo.com/cric… Yahoo! India cricket http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/in/mailmobilemessenger/*http://in.mobile.yahoo.… Yahoo! Messenger Mobile Stay in touch with your buddies all the time.

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Opening up educational material
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 06 Apr '06

06 Apr '06

Dear Dr Bhargava: University Vice Chancellors and professors in India may consider Open Course Ware and Open Educational Resources initiatives. The Knowledge Commission may facilitate by convening a workshop/ brainstorming session. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ---------------------- >From Peter Suber's blog UNESCO report on OA educational resources Paul Albright, Open Educational Resources, UNESCO, undated but released April 4, 2006. The final report of a six-week forum on open educational resources (OER) convened by UNESCO in late 2005. Forum participants included 490 individuals from 90 countries. See UNESCO's press release. Excerpt from the report itself: The OER movement is breaking down barriers that have blocked access to academic content. Until recently, most electronic course content was locked up behind passwords within proprietary systems, noted the forums initial moderator, Sally Johnstone. OER represents a major step toward sharing teaching materials, methods and tools, just as academics have shared their work in scholarly papers for a long time. The result is to augment teaching resources while expanding knowledge opportunities for learners and faculty members. Throughout the forum, a forthright exchange of views stimulated thought and ideas that can advance the cause of OER. Participants stressed the importance of providing open, accessible and superior higher education content for a global community of teachers and scholars, students and lifelong learners. Whether OERs are categorized as open access or free content, they collectively promote autonomy and self-reliance within the learning community. Without the constraints of time or geography, the power of education is released to combat economic, social and cultural obstacles. Through independent, self-determined learning and open academic content, the individual is able to grow intellectually beyond previous personal, institutional or local boundaries. Other benefits range from developing valuable work skills to engaging in life-enriching, lifelong learning....The main challenge to widening access to OER lies in overcoming reticence and uncertainty within the academic community. Although participants reported a growing awareness of OER, many emphasized the need to explain and promote the institutional benefits, and to provide incentives for faculty members to become actively involved....There appears to be a growing tension between the ethical push to promote open access to knowledge and the need for university managers to maximize income from their key assets. How can OER fit into this increasingly commercial, financially and intellectually competitive framework for higher education?

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subscription of e-journals
by paidayya namburu 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

Dear sir, Ours is a P.G. college running the courses in M.B.A, M.C.A. We want to subscribe the required e- journals. We need your help to clarify some doubts regarding 1. The vendors of e-journals ? 2. software and hardware required in the library ? 3.whether AICTE consider the e-journals instead of hardcoppies at the time of inspection ? 4.Is there any AICTE approved e-journals website for M.B.A. and M.C.A courses ? 5. Will they give any username and password if we can subscribe the e-journals ? 6. How can we give acess to the users in the library and the posibility of searching outside library ? Please give your suggesitions Thanking you, Yours sinceraly N.Paidayya, Librarian, Al-Ameer college of Engineering & I.T, MBA ,MCA Programme, Gudilova , Annadhapuram, Visakhapatnam Andhra Pradesh. Pin : 531173 --------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min. Dear sir, Ours is a P.G. college running the courses in M.B.A, M.C.A. We want to subscribe the required e- journals. We need your help to clarify some doubts regarding 1. The vendors of e-journals ? 2. software and hardware required in the library ? 3.whether AICTE consider the e-journals instead of hardcoppies at the time of inspection ? 4.Is there any AICTE approved e-journals website for M.B.A. and M.C.A courses ? 5. Will they give any username and password if we can subscribe the e-journals ? 6. How can we give acess to the users in the library and the posibility of searching outside library ? Please give your suggesitions Thanking you, Yours sinceraly N.Paidayya, Librarian, Al-Ameer college of Engineering & I.T, MBA ,MCA Programme, Gudilova , Annadhapuram, Visakhapatnam Andhra Pradesh. Pin : 531173 Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman7/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/ev… Great rates starting at 1¢/min.

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UNESCO Temporary Recruitment
by mgsree＠iimk.ac.in 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

Dear professionals: I have been asked by UNESCO Delhi Office to inform you about a 10-month temporary position under recruitment in the Communication and Information (CI) in that office. The incumbent will assist in the overall conception, planning and execution of information activities in South Asia including the promotion of access to information and the development of libraries, archives and other information centres. The remuneration will be the equivalent of US$ 700 per month tax free currently about Rs. 30,800 subject to the current exchange rate). The terms of reference are as follows: within the framework of the Information for All Programme (i) Conceptualization, development and implementation of strategies and projects in the use of communication and information technologies (ICTs) for knowledge building and development to include testing of localized solutions and applications such as Open eNRICH software and its content packaging (ii) organization of seminars, workshops and training courses in various aspects of information and development (iii) development of training materials and curricula regarding information technology, literacy and their applications (iv) networking with relevant national, regional and international agencies, NGOs, and relevant local partners in the identification and development of appropriate areas of cooperation (v) identification of possible extra-budgetary sources of funding and development of proposals to access these funds (vi) provision of regular inputs to briefings, deadlines and reports on programme implementation (vii) close follow-up of new developments and resources available in the field of information technology, literacy and their applications. Qualifications · Advanced University Degree in the field of library/information science with excellent knowledge of the internet and its applications . Working experience in the information field (preferably 3-5 years) · Excellent understanding of the issues relating to the application of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development · Updated knowledge of information policy, research methods, software applications particularly open-source, and development trends · Strong verbal and written communication skills, analytical and project management techniques · Strong technical and research skills; proposal writing; project conceptualization and development · Ability to work as a team member in an inter-cultural (and preferably multi-national) environment · Willingness to travel · Thorough mastery of English essential. For more information on UNESCO's programmes see http://unescodelhi.nic.in/ and www.unesco.org/webworld. Interested specialists should contact Ms. Jocelyne Josiah, UNESCO Adviser for Communication and Information in Asia (j.josiah(a)unesco.org) with copy to Ms. Mini Nair (m.nair(a)unesco.org) The full contact information of Ms Josiah is: Adviser in Communication and Information for Asia UNESCO New Delhi UNESCO House B-5/29- Safdarjung Enclave New Delhi 110 029. India Tel: + (91) 11 26713000 - 204/210 Fax: + (91) 11 26713001,02 With regards, Sreekumar -- Dr. M. G. Sreekumar Librarian & Head, Center for Development of Digital Libraries (CDDL) Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode IIMK Campus P.O. Kozhikode, Kerala, India-673 570 ----------------------------------------- Phone : +91 495 2809140 Fax : +91 495 2803010/11 Email : mgsree(a)iimk.ac.in Web : www.iimk.ac.in =========================================

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Vacancy for the post of Librarian
by upasana surinder saijpal 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

Dear All If u know of professinals in our field who are M.L.I.Sc (NET/SET cleared)then please get back to me on this e mail id urgently. This is an opening in an academic library setup for a year in mumbai.If u need any further information, kindly get back to me at the above e mail id or call 9820095816 regards Upasana Saijpal Dear All If u know of professinals in our field who are M.L.I.Sc (NET/SET cleared)then please get back to me on this e mail id urgently. This is an opening in an academic library setup for a year in mumbai.If u need any further information, kindly get back to me at the above e mail id or call 9820095816 regards Upasana Saijpal 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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Electronic Check Point System ( Installation)
by Krishnamurthy M 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

Dear Colleagues, Indian Statistical Institue,Bangalore Center Library has introduced the Electronic Check Point System. This allows inventory is protected by the most advanced electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) technology, designed with the realities of day- to-day business. When a " live" checkpoint target enters the sensors radio frequency detection field, a signal is interrupted, triggering an alaram that alerts to a possible lifting attempt. M.Krishnamurthy -- Dr.M.Krishnamurthy Librarian Indian Statistical Institute 8th Mile Mysore Road R.V.C.E. Post Bangalore 560059 Ph:91-80-28483002/3/4/4 Fax: 91-80-28484265

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Fw: [BOAI] decision on open access at the 8th COP of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Curitiba, March 31
by Subbiah Arunachalam 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

----- Original Message ----- From: Donat Agosti To: 'BOAI Forum' Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 5:27 PM Subject: [BOAI] decision on open access at the 8th COP of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Curitiba, March 31 [sorry for cross-posting with American Scientist open Access Forum] Dear colleagues COP-8, the follow-up conference of the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, ended on March 31 with a decision of importance for our work. Here the excerpt: SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL COOPERATION AND THE CHM: Discussions on scientific and technical cooperation and the CHM (UNEP/CBD/COP/8/4/Rev.1, 17, 17/Add.1, and 18) took place in WG-II on Thursday, 23 March, and Tuesday, 28 March. A decision was approved by WG-II on 28 March. On scientific and technical cooperation, delegates highlighted collaboration with other initiatives, with Colombia stressing repatriation of information. Canada urged parties to provide free and open access to information and, supported by the EU, suggested reference to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Brazil expressed concern about the cost implications of CHM activities, and delegates agreed to take notes of Brazil's reservation in the decision. Final Decision: In the decision (UNEP/CBD/COP/8/L.5), the COP adopts the annexed CHM updated strategic plan for the period 2005-2010 and the CHM work programme up to 2010. THE COP INVITES PARTIES AND OTHER GOVERNMENTS, AS APPROPRIATE, TO PROVIDE FREE AND OPEN ACCESS TO ALL PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE PUBLIC-GOOD RESEARCH RESULTS, ASSESSMENTS, MAPS AND DATABASES ON BIODIVERSITY, IN ACCORDANCE WITH NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATION It also requests parties, and invites other governments and donors, to continue providing financial and technical support to develop national and regional CHMs. The COP requests the Executive Secretary to prepare a report on progress made in the implementation of the strategic plan of the CHM and its work programme for 2005-2010, for COP-10 consideration. Donat Dr. Donat Agosti Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Institution Email: agosti(a)amnh.org Web: http://antbase.org Skype: agostileu CV: http://antbase.org/agosticv_2003.html Dalmaziquai 45 3005 Bern Switzerland +41-31-351 7152  ----- Original Message ----- From: mailto:agosti@amnh.org Donat Agosti To: mailto:boai-forum@ecs.soton.ac.uk 'BOAI Forum' Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 5:27 PM Subject: [BOAI] decision on open access at the 8th COP of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Curitiba, March 31 [ sorry for cross-posting with American Scientist open Access Forum] Dear colleagues COP-8, the follow-up conference of the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, ended on March 31 with a decision of importance for our work. Here the excerpt: SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL COOPERATION AND THE CHM: Discussions on scientific and technical cooperation and the CHM (UNEP/CBD/COP/8/4/Rev.1, 17, 17/Add.1, and 18) took place in WG-II on Thursday, 23 March, and Tuesday, 28 March. A decision was approved by WG-II on 28 March. On scientific and technical cooperation, delegates highlighted collaboration with other initiatives, with Colombia stressing repatriation of information. Canada urged parties to provide free and open access to information and, support ed by the EU, suggested reference to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Brazil expressed concern about the cost implications of CHM activities, and delegates agreed to take notes of Brazil s reservation in the decision. Final Decision: In the decision (UNEP/CBD/COP/8/L.5), the COP adopts the annexed CHM updated strategic plan for the period 2005-2010 and the CHM work programme up to 2010. THE COP INVITES PARTIES AND OTHER GOVERNMENTS, AS APPROPRIATE, TO PROVIDE FREE AND OPEN ACCESS TO ALL PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE PUBLIC-GOOD RESEARCH RESULTS, ASSESSMENTS, MAPS AND DATABASES ON BIODIVERSITY, IN ACCORDANCE WITH NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATION It also requests parties, and invites other governments and donors, to continue providing financial and technical support to develop national and regional CHMs . The COP requests the Executive Secretary to prepare a report on progress made in the implementation of the strategic plan of the CHM and its work programme for 2005-2010, for COP-10 consideration. Donat Dr. Donat Agosti Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Institution Email: agosti(a)amnh.org Web: http://antbase.org Skype : agostileu CV: http://antbase.org/agosticv_2003.html Dalmaziquai 45 3005 Bern Switzerland +41-31-351 7152

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India should adopt "Open course ware"
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

Friends: Many universities around the world, following MIT's Open Course Ware project, are providing their course material free on the Internet. In China and Japan universities take the trouble to translate the material into Chinese and japanese. As far as I know, not a single university in India has taken to providing the course ware on the Net for people to use. Of course IGNOU broadcasts over radio and television a large number of programmes under its Gyan Vani programme. Leading universities and university teachers should come forward to make thie courses available to students (and others interested to learn) on the Net. That could be one small step in making India a knowledge society. Subbiah Arunachalam -------------------- >From MIT's Open Course Ware site 8. China Quality OCW (CNQOCW) ---------------------------------------------------------------- China Open Resources for Education (CORE), MIT OCW's Chinese language translation partner, now offers links to more than 450 China Quality OpenCourseWare (CNQOCW) courses for use and sharing in China and globally. In addition, CORE has translated 110 MIT OCW courses into Simplified Chinese, which are available at http://www.core.org.cn/OCW_CN/Global/all-courses.htm 9. Japan OCW Alliance ---------------------------------------------------------------- The leading nine universities in Japan -- Hokkaido University, Keio University, Kyoto University, Kyushu University, Nagoya University, Osaka University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, the University of Tokyo, and Waseda University -- have formed the Japan OCW Alliance. These six universities now offer open access to more than 100 courses, in both English and Japanese. 10. FETP OCW in Vietnam ---------------------------------------------------------------- Inspired by the MIT OCW initiative, the Fulbright School Economics Teaching Program (FETP) in Vietnam launched FETP OpenCourseWare in 2003, the first "opencourseware" project to launch after MIT OCW opened in September 2002. The Fulbright School participates with other academic institutions in Vietnam to promote the use of innovative long-distance learning activities.

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Need for mandating OA - Evidence from Australia
by arun＠mssrf.res.in 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

Friends: Here is additional for the need for mandating from Australia. We in India (and other developing countries) should not delay any further. We should go ahead and mandate OA for all publicly funded research. Best wishes. Subbiah Arunachalam ------------------- >From Peter Suber's blog OA mandates work better than requests Arthur Sale, Comparison of content policies for institutional repositories in Australia, First Monday, April 2006. Abstract: Seven Australian universities have established institutional repositories (containing research articles, also known as eprints) that can be analyzed for content and which were in operation during 2004 and 2005. This short paper analyses their content and shows that a requirement to deposit research output into a repository coupled with effective author support policies works in Australia and delivers high levels of content. Voluntary deposit policies do not, regardless of any author support by the university. This is consistent with international data.

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Copyright Law Amendment
by Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy 04 Apr '06

04 Apr '06

Dear Friends The Indian Copyright Act is being amended and the government is asking for views of the public. Please visit www.copyright.gov.in and follow the Link Amendment to Copyright Act to send your views. Librarians have a lot of concerns and they must be addressed now. The form needs some expertise in legal matters. I suggest that some 'active' associations like KALA, ALSD or ILA or IASLIC collect views quickly and send it to government. -- Dr P Vyasamoorthy, SENIORS (Society for Enriched Information of Relevance to Seniors), 30, Gruhalakshmi Colony, Secunderabad 500018 Phone 27846631

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Mandating OA
by Subbiah Arunachalam 04 Apr '06

04 Apr '06

Friends: The European Commission has just released a report that talks about guaranteeing open access to all publicly-funded research. We in India should adopt a much more progressive step and mandate instant open access for all publicly funde research, meaning that papers should be made available via open access the same day as they are published. We have already lost much time. We cannot afford to lose any more time. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] EC recommmends OA archiving for publicly-funded research The European Commission has released its lengthy (108 pp.) and long-awaited report, Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe. (Thanks to INIST-CNRS.) The report is dated January 2006 but was not apparently released until today. The underlying inquiry was announced in June 2004. Excerpt: Aware of current public debates that reveal worries about the conditions of access and dissemination of scientific publications, the European Commission's Directorate- General for Research has commissioned a study that seeks: (i) to assess the evolution of the market for scientific publishing; and (ii) to discuss the potential desirability of Europeanlevel measures to help improve the conditions governing access to and the exchange, dissemination and archiving of scientific publications (taking into account all actors/ stakeholders of the sector)....The report considers the specificities of the market for current journal issues. In doing so, it discusses the broad facts about the market; it undertakes a quantitative analysis of journal prices; it discusses the implications of technological innovation on pricing strategies and the dynamics of entry; and it analyzes the implication of these developments in terms of competition policy. It also discusses the various alternatives for disseminating and accessing scientific publications. This includes the question of access to research results on individual web pages or in public repositories, the development of openaccess journals as well as other alternatives, such as pay-per-view, the question of the longterm preservation of electronic publications and the use of standards to ensure interoperability between systems....[M]uch of scientific activity is publicly funded: the output of research is typically not bought by journals but 'donated' by publicly-funded researchers; so are to a large extent refereeing services for the evaluation of research; and finally, journals are bought by publicly-funded researchers or, more often now, by publicly-funded libraries. It is therefore crucial for public authorities to form a view on the relative efficiency of the scientific publication process.... In view of the libraries' ongoing budgetary difficulties and of the opportunities provided by information technologies, and acknowledging the significant part of public funds involved in the scientific publishing process, a movement in favor of open access to scientific information has gained scale in the research community and research-related organizations. Declarations in favor of open access, such as Budapest Open Access Initiative and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, were signed by thousands of individuals and by major research institutions and research funding bodies around the world. These concerns about access to research results have been echoed by the civil society (e.g. at the World Summit on the Information Society) and by political bodies at national and international levels (e.g. the OECD Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding). In the UK, the House of Commons (2004) recommended that public funding agencies require open access to publicly-funded research through deposit of the publications in the authors' institutional repositories. Following these declarations and recommendations, several important research funding bodies have established policies urging their funded researchers to publish in open access journals, offering to pay the publication fees if any, and/or to deposit their articles in an open access repository (e.g. the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Research Councils, the Wellcome Trust, CERN.). These policies have raised publishers and learned societies' concerns about the potential threat on their existence and activities: they fear that as articles become freely available in open archives and as search, access and retrieval facilities are enhanced by search engines and interoperability, journal subscriptions will be cancelled, thereby undermining the viability of their journals. Starting from this global economic and research-policy context, this report provides an independent analysis of the conditions regarding access and dissemination of research results, with a view to maximizing societal returns on R&D investments.... The evidence discussed in Sections 3 to 5 points however to a market where publishers do enjoy market power. This means that access can be improved significantly before one has to start worrying about threatening this reader/library-pay model. At present, immediate access can be achieved through individual web pages, through open access repositories or archives collecting e-prints deposited by their authors, and through open access journals which rely on various sources of income. In some countries, public authorities have funded large-scale projects to develop portals providing free online access to selected scholarly journals published in their countries (e.g. SciELO in Latin American countries, J-STAGE in Japan, various projects in India). As an increasing volume of research output from outside Europe becomes openly accessible, it raises the question of the visibility and accessibility, and of the subsequent potential impact, of European research as most articles by European researchers are published in subscription-based journals. In this respect, policies like those put in place by the U.S. NIH, the UK Research Councils or the Wellcome Trust - which promote open availability of research results no later than 12 months after publication - could be emulated across Europe, after discussions with the publishers. The aim could be to ensure that published European-funded research (at EU, national, or regional levels) be deposited in standardized open archives some time after publication. Recent surveys show that a majority of researchers seem willing to self-archive their articles if induced to do so by their employer or funding body....It is worth noting that, if the research funding authorities want to 'give a chance' to the author-pay model, they have to allow for a 'level-playing field' in comparison with the reader/library-pay model, that is, provide funding for publication costs and not only for library budgets....[T]here is a central role for funding bodies to define policies which will improve access and dissemination of publications, especially in terms of self-archiving requirement.... RECOMMENDATION A1. GUARANTEE PUBLIC ACCESS TO PUBLICLY-FUNDED RESEARCH RESULTS SHORTLY AFTER PUBLICATION. Research funding agencies have a central role in determining researchers' publishing practices. Following the lead of the NIH and other institutions, they should promote and support the archiving of publications in open repositories, after a (possibly domain-specific) time period to be discussed with publishers. This archiving could become a condition for funding. The following actions could be taken at the European level: (i) Establish a European policy mandating published articles arising from EC-funded research to be available after a given time period in open access archives, and (ii) Explore with Member States and with European research and academic associations whether and how such policies and open repositories could be implemented. Also see the HTML splash page for the report. The EC is soliciting comments on the report; please send them to rtd-scientific-publication(a)cec.eu.int by June 1, 2006. Peter Suber's Comment. This is big. Recommedation A1 doesn't directly call for an OA mandate to publicly-funded research, but it does call for a "guarantee" of OA, asserts that OA archiving "could become a condition of funding", and proposes that a mandate is one action that "could be taken at the European level". If the authors are distinguishing a guarantee from a mandate, then I'd like to hear more about it. But "even" a guarantee would be extremely welcome. Moreover, the recommendation calls for OA "shortly after publication". I hope this report strengthens the final draft of the RCUK policy, triggers the adoption of OA policies at the national level across Europe, and increases the odds that the nascent European Research Council will mandate OA to ERC-funded research. Friends: The European Commission has just released a report that talks about guaranteeing open access to all publicly-funded research. We in India should adopt a much more progressive step and mandate instant open access for all publicly funde research, meaning that papers should be made available via open access the same day as they are published. We have already lost much time. We cannot afford to lose any more time. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] EC recommmends OA archiving for publicly-funded research The http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm European Commission has released its lengthy (108 pp.) and long-awaited report, http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publicati… Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe . (Thanks to http://www.inist.fr/openaccess/ INIST-CNRS .) The report is dated January 2006 but was not apparently released until today. The underlying inquiry was http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/research/press/2004/pr1506en.cfm announced in June 2004. Excerpt: Aware of current public debates that reveal worries about the conditions of access and dissemination of scientific publications, the European Commissions Directorate- General for Research has commissioned a study that seeks: (i) to assess the evolution of the market for scientific publishing; and (ii) to discuss the potential desirability of Europeanlevel measures to help improve the conditions governing access to and the exchange, dissemination and archiving of scientific publications (taking into account all actors/ stakeholders of the sector)....The report considers the specificities of the market for current journal issues. In doing so, it discusses the broad facts about the market; it undertakes a quantitative analysis of journal prices; it discusses the implications of technological innovation on pricing strategies and the dynamics of entry; and it analyzes the implication of these developments in terms of competition policy. It also discusses the various alternatives for disseminating and accessing scientific publications. This includes the question of access to research results on individual web pages or in public repositories, the development of openaccess journals as well as other alternatives, such as pay-per-view, the question of the longterm preservation of electronic publications and the use of standards to ensure interoperability between systems....[M]uch of scientific activity is publicly funded: the output of research is typically not bought by journals but donated by publicly-funded researchers; so are to a large extent refereeing services for the evaluation of research; and finally, journals are bought by publicly-funded researchers or, more often now, by publicly-funded libraries. It is therefore crucial for public authorities to form a view on the relative efficiency of the scientific publication process.... In view of the libraries ongoing budgetary difficulties and of the opportunities provided by information technologies, and acknowledging the significant part of public funds involved in the scientific publishing process, a movement in favor of open access to scientific information has gained scale in the research community and research-related organizations. Declarations in favor of open access, such as Budapest Open Access Initiative and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, were signed by thousands of individuals and by major research institutions and research funding bodies around the world. These concerns about access to research results have been echoed by the civil society (e.g. at the World Summit on the Information Society) and by political bodies at national and international levels (e.g. the OECD Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding). In the UK, the House of Commons (2004) recommended that public funding agencies require open access to publicly-funded research through deposit of the publications in the authors institutional repositories. Following these declarations and recommendations, several important research funding bodies have established policies urging their funded researchers to publish in open access journals, offering to pay the publication fees if any, and/or to deposit their articles in an open access repository (e.g. the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Research Councils, the Wellcome Trust, CERN). These policies have raised publishers and learned societies concerns about the potential threat on their existence and activities: they fear that as articles become freely available in open archives and as search, access and retrieval facilities are enhanced by search engines and interoperability, journal subscriptions will be cancelled, thereby undermining the viability of their journals. Starting from this global economic and research-policy context, this report provides an independent analysis of the conditions regarding access and dissemination of research results, with a view to maximizing societal returns on R&D investments.... The evidence discussed in Sections 3 to 5 points however to a market where publishers do enjoy market power. This means that access can be improved significantly before one has to start worrying about threatening this reader/library-pay model. At present, immediate access can be achieved through individual web pages, through open access repositories or archives collecting e-prints deposited by their authors, and through open access journals which rely on various sources of income. In some countries, public authorities have funded large-scale projects to develop portals providing free online access to selected scholarly journals published in their countries (e.g. SciELO in Latin American countries, J-STAGE in Japan, various projects in India). As an increasing volume of research output from outside Europe becomes openly accessible, it raises the question of the visibility and accessibility, and of the subsequent potential impact, of European research as most articles by European researchers are published in subscription-based journals. In this respect, policies like those put in place by the U.S. NIH, the UK Research Councils or the Wellcome Trust which promote open availability of research results no later than 12 months after publication could be emulated across Europe, after discussions with the publishers. The aim could be to ensure that published European-funded research (at EU, national, or regional levels) be deposited in standardized open archives some time after publication. Recent surveys show that a majority of researchers seem willing to self-archive their articles if induced to do so by their employer or funding body....It is worth noting that, if the research funding authorities want to give a chance to the author-pay model, they have to allow for a level-playing field in comparison with the reader/library-pay model, that is, provide funding for publication costs and not only for library budgets....[T]here is a central role for funding bodies to define policies which will improve access and dissemination of publications, especially in terms of self-archiving requirement.... RECOMMENDATION A1. GUARANTEE PUBLIC ACCESS TO PUBLICLY-FUNDED RESEARCH RESULTS SHORTLY AFTER PUBLICATION. Research funding agencies have a central role in determining researchers publishing practices. Following the lead of the NIH and other institutions, they should promote and support the archiving of publications in open repositories, after a (possibly domain-specific) time period to be discussed with publishers. This archiving could become a condition for funding. The following actions could be taken at the European level: (i) Establish a European policy mandating published articles arising from EC-funded research to be available after a given time period in open access archives, and (ii) Explore with Member States and with European research and academic associations whether and how such policies and open repositories could be implemented. Also see the HTML http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/414&forma… splash page for the report. The EC is soliciting comments on the report; please send them to mailto:rtd-scientific-publication@cec.eu.int rtd-scientific-publication(a)cec.eu.int by June 1, 2006. Peter Suber's Comment . This is big. Recommedation A1 doesn't directly call for an OA mandate to publicly-funded research, but it does call for a "guarantee" of OA, asserts that OA archiving "could become a condition of funding", and proposes that a mandate is one action that "could be taken at the European level". If the authors are distinguishing a guarantee from a mandate, then I'd like to hear more about it. But "even" a guarantee would be extremely welcome. Moreover, the recommendation calls for OA "shortly after publication". I hope this report strengthens the final draft of the RCUK policy, triggers the adoption of OA policies at the national level across Europe, and increases the odds that the nascent European Research Council will mandate OA to ERC-funded research.

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