- LIS-Forum - ncsi.iisc.ernet.in

Re: [LIS-Forum] FW: [BOAI] New PLoS/OSI institutional membership grants
by Mailing List Manager 25 Mar '04

25 Mar '04

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 03:44:43 -0800 (PST) From: JK Vijayakumar <vjkjk(a)yahoo.com> George Soros is founder and chairman of the Open Society Institute and the Soros foundations network (http://www.soros.org/)Soros foundations are autonomous institutions established in particular countries or regions to initiate and support open society activities. The priorities and specific activities of each Soros foundation are determined by a local board of directors and staff in consultation with George Soros and OSI boards and advisors. As per the guidelines the fundings will go to the countries where Soros Network is active.Unfortunately India is not covered under this catagory (http://www.soros.org/openaccess/grants.shtml) I hope Shri Arun can utilise his international relations in open access initiative to activate Soros network in India, and then ask for fundings. > India is again excluded as was done earlier > with HINARI and AGORA! > > Arun

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[DIGLIB] New and Old Articles About Innovative Information Systems
by Mailing List Manager 24 Mar '04

24 Mar '04

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 10:47:47 -0600 From: Gerry Mckiernan <gerrymck(a)iastate.edu> I am pleased to announce the publication and availability of self-archived copies of two of my SCI-5 columns devoted to Innovative Information Systems: "New Age E-Journals, Indexes, and Services," Science & Technology Libraries, Vol. 21, No. 3/4, 2001 [2003], pp. 223-233. [ http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/EJIS.pdf] "Scholar-Based Initiatives in Publishing," Science & Technology Libraries, Vol. 22, No. 3/4, 2002 [2003], pp. 181-191 [ http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/SBI.pdf ] **************************************************************************** I am also pleased to announce the availability of self-archived copies of previously published articles that profile other Innovative Information Systems, etc: "eCONF: The SLAC Electronic Conference Proceedings Archive," Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 5, 2001, pp. 16-23. http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/eCONF.pdf ABSTRACT To promote the publication and expedite the availability of conference proceedings, an experimental archive titled eConf has been established under the auspices of the SLAC Technical Information Services department. At this time, the eConf archive is limited to proceedings in high-energy physics and related fields. The archive presently contains the conference papers of two proceedings: the 19th International Symposium on Lepton and Photon Interactions at High Energies (LP 99) and 20th International Linac Conference. http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/ **************************************************************************** "EnergyFiles: The Virtual Library of Energy Science and Technology," Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 20, No. 1, January/February 2003, 30-36. http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/EnergyFiles.pdf ABSTRACT The targeted audience for EnergyFiles is end users and organizations having a need for energy-related scientific and technical information. Anticipated primary users include researchers, scientists, project managers, program, managers, academic (educators and students), and associated information professionals. NOTE: Review of previous version of interface and system http://www.osti.gov/EnergyFiles/ ************************************************************************** "Library Database Advisors - Emerging Innovative Augmented Digital Library Services," Library Hi Tech News Vol. 19, No. 4, May 2002, pp. 27-33. "Why should we make our users hunt down the best resource for a given information need and learn how to use its particular options for searching? Why not provide them with a simple way to get started?" || Roy Tennant || http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/LDBA.pdf **************************************************************************** "Web-based Journal Manuscript Management and Peer-Review Systems and Services," Library Hi Tech News Vol. 19, No. 7, August 2002, pp. 31-43. "* [A] paperless system would significantly reduce delays in all aspects of the dissemination cycle. The composition process itself should be speeded up and so should the whole interaction among writers, publishers, and referees." || F. W. Lancaster || [Lancaster, F.W., Toward Paperless Information Systems ( Academic Press: New York, NY, 1978), 127.] http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/PeerSoft.pdf **************************************************************************** And BTW: For the Irish amongst us, as well as those who wish they were [:-)]: Happy St. Patrick's Day! Enjoy! /Gerry Gerry McKiernan New and Old Irish Librarian Iowa State University Ames IA 50011 gerrymck(a)iastate.edu

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FW: [BOAI] New PLoS/OSI institutional membership grants
by Mailing List Manager 23 Mar '04

23 Mar '04

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 09:47:01 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> India is again excluded as was done earlier with HINARI and AGORA! Arun For immediate release � Contact: Melissa Hageman, Open Society Institute: (212) 548-0142 MHagemann@sorosny.org� Helen Doyle, Public Library of Science: (415) 624-1217 hdoyle @plos.org � Academic publishing made more accessible for scientists in developing world New Open Society Institute Grants Program Will Promote Open Access Publishing March 22, 2004 New York, NY & San Francisco, CA� The Open Society Institute (OSI) and Public Library of Science (PLoS) today announced a new grants program to support open access publishing in developing and transition countries. The grants will make it much easier for scientists based in developing and transition countries to submit articles to the premiere peer-reviewed research journals published by PLoS. "Scientists in poorer countries have been virtually excluded from the journal publishing world," said Darius Cuplinskas, director of OSI's Information Program. "Open access journals will remove barriers and make these scientists full members of the international scientific community. PLoS is a non-profit advocacy organization and a publisher of open-access journals, which are available free of charge online and are subsidized largely by author-side charges for publication. While this pay-to-publish system allows PLoS to make scientific and medical literature immediately accessible to anyone in the world with an Internet connection, many authors from developing countries cannot afford the fees. Now, scientists affiliated with the OSI-funded member institutions will be entitled to a waiver of publication charges for their articles in PLoS journals. OSI's Information Program has been a strong supporter of the open access movement. Its Budapest Open Access Initiative, launched in 2002, advocates for the support of two parallel strategies for the adoption of open access:� self-archiving and open access journals. The OSI/PLoS Institutional Membership grants will target developing and transition countries.� Authors from the least developed countries will receive a waiver of publication charge upon request, a policy PLoS has had in place since the launch of its first journal, PLoS Biology, in October 2003.� To ensure that ability to pay publication charges does not influence the review process, PLoS has a firewall in place to shield requests from all editors and reviewers. The debate about open access has shifted recently, said Dr. Helen Doyle, PLoS director of development and strategic alliances. Doubts about its value have been replaced with doubts about its viability. This commitment from OSI answers the question of how scientists in developing countries will be able to publish in our journals on a large scale. The complete list of countries and regions where institutions are eligible for the new memberships is as follows: Albania Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bulgaria Cameroon Cote d'Ivoire Croatia Czech Republic Estonia Georgia Ghana Guatemala Hungary Indonesia Kazakhstan Kosovo Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia� Lithuania Macedonia Moldova Mongolia Namibia Nigeria Peru Poland Romania Russia Serbia and Montenegro Slovakia South Africa Swaziland Tajikistan Thailand Turkey Ukraine Uzbekistan Vietnam Zimbabwe�� More information about the grants is available at http://www.soros.org/openaccess/grants.shtml . The joint OSI-PLoS announcement follows the January launch of the PLoS Institutional Membership program. More information about the PLoS Membership Program is available at http://www.plos.org/support.

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Fwd: Re: UK Select Committee Inquiry into Scientific Publication
by Mailing List Manager 23 Mar '04

23 Mar '04

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 16:38:52 +0000 (GMT) From: "[iso-8859-1] Subbiah Arunachalam" <subbiah_a(a)yahoo.com> Of potential interest to the readers of this list: > > Press Release > > 22 March 2004 > > BioMed Central explodes Open Access myths > > Open Access is good news for UK research funding > > "A switch to Open Access would not negatively impact research funding," > BioMed Central declared today. The Open Access publisher issued a strong > rebuttal of arguments that have been submitted by opponents of Open > Access to the ongoing UK House of Commons Select Committee inquiry into > scientific publishing. > > In Open Access Myths, a statement released today, BioMed Central > counters claims that Open Access publishing would cut into research > funding, asserting: > > "The vastly increased access to research that is delivered by Open > Access will greatly increase the effectiveness of the research money > that is spent." > > The statement continues: > > "Open Access publishers are leading the way in using web technology to > reduce costs further, so the cost of Open Access publishing to the > scientific community will be significantly less than the cost of the > system that it replaces." > > Open Access publishing, which makes all original research articles > freely available to anyone, has been a major focus of the Government > inquiry. > > Today's statement from BioMed Central responds to each of the major > "anti-Open Access" arguments made during the course of the inquiry so > far. > > "We felt it was important, at this stage when many people are hearing > about Open Access for the first time, to dispel some of these myths," > says Jan Velterop, BioMed Central's Publisher. > > Other myths dispelled in the document include: "transferring copyright > to a publisher protects scientific integrity"; "UK researchers already > have all the access they need"; "industry will benefit from Open Access > at the expense of research institutes"; and "the public would be > confused if they had access to medical research". > > The BioMed Central statement appears on a new web page, also launched > today, which brings together links to all the publicly accessible > evidence that has been submitted to the Select Committee, together with > the uncorrected transcripts of the oral evidence sessions. This web page > will be continually updated as the inquiry proceeds, providing a central > resource for information relating to the inquiry. > > The site includes links to evidence from both Open Access's supporters > and its detractors. "We want people to read all of the arguments about > Open Access - both for and against," says BioMed Central Publisher Jan > Velterop. "We firmly believe that we have convincing arguments to > counter the objections to Open Access. We want to have an open debate." > > END > > The BioMed Central statement is available at: > > http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/myths.pdf > > The BioMed Central inquiry website is available at: > > http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/ > > For more information, please contact Grace Baynes. > press(a)biomedcentral.com > Tel: +44 (0) 20 7631 9988 > > About BioMed Central: > > BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online > publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to the > peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This > commitment is based on the view that open access to research is > essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science. In > addition to open-access original research, BioMed Central also publishes > reviews and other subscription-based content.

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Fwd: Manlibnet 6th National Convention
by Mailing List Manager 23 Mar '04

23 Mar '04

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 16:56:12 +0530 From: Jitender Sharma <jsharma(a)niilm.com> 6th MANLIBNET NATIONAL CONVENTION ON Information Services in Management and Business Libraries : Recent Trends May 12-14 2004 Mumbai In Collaboration with Indian Council of Social Science Research Western Regional Centre J P Naik Bhavan, Vidyanagari Kalina, Mumbai 400098 6th National MANLIBNET Convention is to be held at Western Regional Centre, Indian Council of Social Science Research, ICSSR, Mumbai from May 12-14, 2004. The main theme will be Information Services in Management and Business Libraries : Recent Trends. The sub-themes of the convention are : - Databases for Management and Business Libraries : Users view point. - Internet Based Resources for the Librarians - Information Services : Case Studies - Networking and Consortia Approach : Plans and Programmes. Submission of Papers Participants are welcome to submit original unpublished papers preferably based on practical experience or research for presentation at the convention. The length of the paper should not exceed 4000 words. Two copies of the paper should be submitted in A4 size with a soft copy in 1.44MB floppy using MS Word latest by 15th April 2004. Articles can also be submitted by email at: manlibnet2004(a)yahoo.co.in Title page of the paper should contain the name of the author, title of the paper, designation and official address of the author (including telephone number and E-mail address); and an abstract of the paper in about 200 words. Authors are requested to prepare a power point or Over Head Projector presentation for the convention. The authors will be communicated about the acceptance of the paper by the Organising Secretary. Authors are expected to come well prepared to present the paper. Papers are to be sent to : The General Secretary, MANLIBNET, B-2/B-223, Janakpuri, New Delhi-110058 Registration / Delegation Fee Without Accommodation Rs.1000 With Accommodation Rs.1750 Accommodation will be provided in the guest house and the hostel of Western Regional Centre of the ICSSR. Since the number of rooms in the guest house / hostel is limited, it may not be possible to provide accommodation to all the outstation participants. As such, prospective delegates are requested to send their registration fee well in advance so that accommodation can be reserved for them. Completed Registration Forms with all necessary details should be sent to the General Secretary, MANLIBNET, B-2/B-223, Janakpuri, New Delhi-110058 alongwith a demand draft for Rs.1000 or Rs.1750 in favour of Management Libraries Network, payable at Delhi / New Delhi Jitender Sharma Librarian NIILM CMS & UNIVERSITY B-II/66, MCIE, Sher Shah Suri Marg Badarpur, New Delhi - 110044 Tel: 91-011-29891529/39, 29893143 (Dir.) Fax: 91-011-29894212 E-mail: jsharma(a)niilm.com, jitendersharma(a)hotmail.com

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Forwarded mail....
by Mailing List Manager 22 Mar '04

22 Mar '04

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 08:45:57 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Friends: [The following has been posted by the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development on March 19, 2004, to the Health Information Forum sponsored by the WHO (HIF-net)] Recent messages have shown that the concept of Open Access is now beginning to be more widely understood and earlier misconceptions dispelled. We have responded individually to correspondents, but feel it would be helpful to provide further information to the general list. For some time, the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development has been promoting the importance of the open access movement for the strengthening of the science base in developing countries. The EPT web site (http://www.epublishingtrust.org) now contains much information on open access, particularly as it relates to developing countries. Additionally the Bioline International web site (http://www.bioline.org.br) contains the full text of some 28 journals published in developing countries, free to all. These journals contain much research of medical significance and so are of interest to this list. In order that developing countries are also part of the open access evolution, Bioline International has set up an Open Access Archive (bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca) specifically for developing country publishers. Much of the material on the main Bioline International site is now also archived in a way that is compatible with the open access search engines and so interoperable with the increasing numbers of Archives being established around the world. Institutional archiving was one of two routes recommended by the Soros-supported Budapest Open Access Initiative (1). As well as freeing research literature from the crippling toll-access situation, it also promotes the research output of all contributing institutes. The establishment of institutional archives in the developing countries ensures that their national research becomes mainstream and contributes on an equal footing to the global knowledge pool. It is important to understand that open access Institutional Archives contain already reviewed and published research papers. Quality is unaffected. Scientists can continue to publish in their preferred refereed journals, merely archiving the already published papers in their institutional archives, simultaneously or subsequently. Approaching 60% of publishers (including Nature publisher and Elsevier) allow simultaneous archiving to take place. The remainder seem likely to follow, or accept institutional archiving a few months after the primary publication. Publishers now recognise that this will not affect their sales - as has been clearly demonstrated by the physics communities' archive, http://arxiv.org, which has existed side by side with prestigious physics journals for more than 10 years now. >From the point of view of authors, it is already shown that the visibility and impact of open access published papers is greatly increased (2). This is the ultimate aim of scientific publishing and leads to the establishment of important research partnerships with fellow scientists in their field. The professional isolation felt by many scientists in developing countries is overcome. Open access archives can be established at almost no cost, or institutes may use an already-established archive. All software is free of charge and there is much technical help available to institutes (see below). This is therefore a highly appropriate route for developing country institutes to follow, and great strides are already being made. India is planning its second OA workshop and has a series of institute meetings planned (3); OA workshops are also planned this summer in Brasil and China to raise awareness and transfer technical support. The alternative BOAI route to open access is via the establishment of OA journals, the route followed by BioMedCentral, PubMedCentral and others. This route is likely to take longer to accomplish, but is making an important contribution to the freeing of research literature from unaffordable subscription charges. Again, quality of publications is firmly maintained. Attached, below, is a list of sites showing a) papers on OA developments, b) the growing international support for this endeavour, c) activities already underway in the developing world and technical information, such as access to the free software for the establishment of interoperable archives and a FAQ answering many common misunderstandings. The connectivity problem is gradually being overcome, as shown by the message from Najeeb Al-Shorbaji (shorbajin(a)emro.who.int) and it is important that developing countries are part of the information evolution now underway. The message from Dr.Vinod Scaria (drvinod(a)hotpop.com) shows how fast things are beginning to move and how the impact of OA publications is encouraging publishers, authors and their institutes. The problem of language (upieks(a)fetp.org) remains and should be the main focus of development once access problems are resolved. We hope the following links are of value to list readers. If further information or help is required, please contact us. Barbara Kirsop, EPT Secretariat, UK, barbara(a)biostrat.demon.co.uk Leslie Chan, Trustee EPT, Bioline International, Canada, chan(a)utsc.utoronto.ca Subbiah Arunachalam, Trustee EPT, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, India arun(a)mssrf.res.in (1). Soros Budapest Open Access Initiative http://www.soros.org/openaccess/ (2). S. Lawrence paper in Nature, 411(6387):521, 2002 'Free online availability substantially increases a paper's impact' http://www.neci.nec.com/~lawrence/papers/online-nature01/ (3) 'India's march towards open access', Subbiah Arunachalam, recent SciDevNet paper http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=243& language=1 a) SOME INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENTS TO THE OPEN ACCESS MOVEMENT World Summit for the Information Society Declaration of Principles 3,28 and Plan of Action C3i and 22d http://www.wsis.org Wellcome Trust Statement of Support for OA http://www.wellcome.ac.uk Berlin Declaration (signed by many research institutes in Germany, France and other EU countries) http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html American Research Libraries, SPARC statement and guidelines http://www.arl.org/sparc/ b) DEVELOPING COUNTRY OA INITIATIVES AND PAPERS Bioline International main web site (Brazil/Canada non-profit initiative in support of developing country publishers) http://www.bioline.org.br Indian Institute of Science OA server http://www.iisc.ernet.in/ Bangalore OA workshop 2003 http://www.ias.ac.in/epubworkshop/curriculum.html L Chan, B Kirsop, 'Impact of OA on developing country science', Ariadne, 30, 2001 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue30/oai-chan Open Access Now Interview of Subbiah Arunachalam http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/archive/?page=features&issue=11 c) FREE OA DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE AND SUPPORT SERVICES OA archives information and support http://www.eprints.org Frequently Asked Question on OA http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/ Handbook for setting up eprints servers http://www.eprints.org/handbook/ OAIster search service http://www.oaister.org/ Directory of Open Access Journals http://www.curl.ac.uk/about/isca.html

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RE: [BOAI] Workshop on Open Access
by Mailing List Manager 22 Mar '04

22 Mar '04

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 08:24:34 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Thanks very much Peter. I do not know how many subscribers are there in India for BOAI Forum. I request them to spread the word. We are keen to get participants from higher educational institutions (general universities, especially central universities and the larger state universities; agricultural universities; larger medical institutions; IITs) and government research institutions (CSIR, ICAR, ICMR, DAE, DST, Dept of Space, DRDO, etc.). In particular institutions publishing more than a few hundred papers a year are most welcome to nominate candidates. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] -----Original Message----- From: Peter Suber [mailto:peters@earlham.edu] Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 11:01 PM To: boai-forum(a)ecs.soton.ac.uk Subject: [BOAI] Workshop on Open Access M S SWAMINATHAN RESEARCH FOUNDATION Third Cross Street, Taramani Instituional Area, Chennai 600 113 Tel: 044 2254 1229, 2254 2791 Fax: 044 2254 1319 Workshop on Open Access Overview All scientists need to publish their findings. Indeed, research is incomplete as long as it remains unpublished. The last few years have witnessed the unprecedented rise in the subscription costs of journals and even well-endowed institutions in rich countries find it difficult to retain journal subscriptions. The situation in developing countries like India is even worse. Besides, others in the rest of the world do not really read much of the work that we do in India. What is more, if our scientists publish their papers in expensive journals, then even other Indian scientists do not read them, as not many Indian institutions may subscribe to those journals. It is for this reason that the open access (OA) movement is gaining ground around the world - both in the advanced countries and in the developing countries. Indeed, OA will be of much greater advantage to India than to the western countries. Physicists have been placing their preprints and postprints for well over 13 years in a centralized archive called arXiv, which has more than 15 mirror sites including one located in India (Matscience, Chennai). There are several other centralized archives such as Cogprints (for cognitive sciences), CiteSeer (for computer science) and RePEc (for economics). Currently, institutional archives are favoured, as they work to satisfy the felt needs of both individual scientists and their institutions. There are at least three sets of software available, all of them free, to set up such interoperable institutional archives. This workshop aims to help Indian scientists (representing general and agricultural universities and government laboratories under the various councils and departments) to acquire the skills necessary to be able to set up and maintain institutional open archives. This workshop will provide training in Eprints software developed at the University of Southampton and the Open Archives Interoperability protocol. There is great interest in open access around the world. In the USA, Congressman Martin Sabo has introduced a bill suggesting that findings of all publicly funded research must be made freely available to all. In the UK, the Parliament has appointed a committee to inquire current and potentially useful practices in science publishing. Several discussion lists are actively promoting exchange of views on open access. The Budapest Open Access Initiative is providing funds to promote open access initiatives. In India, INSA devoted a whole day for a seminar on open access at its annual meeting held at NCL, Pune, in late December 2003. Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, held two workshops on open access journals in March 2002. The Workshop On a suggestion from Prof. M S Valiathan, President of the Indian National Science Academy, the Bioinformatics Centre of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation will be holding two identical three-day workshops with a view to developing a cadre of open access experts in Indian higher educational institutions and government laboratories. We expect that before the end of the year at least a dozen institutions will have their own institutional archives up and running. There will be 20-24 participants in each workshop. Each participant and the faculty will have an Internet-connected computer on his/her desk. Dates: 2-4 May 2004 and 6-8 May 2004 Venue: M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Sambasivan Auditorium The Faculty: The workshop will be conducted by the following four experts, known for their commitment to promoting this technology worldwide: Prof. Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto and Bioline International, Dr Leslie Carr of the University of Southampton, Dr D K Sahu of MedKnow Publications, Mumbai, and Dr T B Rajashekar of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. All of them have considerable hands-on experience in open access. Participants: Higher educational institutions and government research laboratories (under the different Councils and Departments) may nominate candidates in the prescribed form. [Heads of these institutions may kindly ensure that an institutional archive is set up within three months after the conclusion of the workshop]. 4048 candidates will be selected. Participants will either be scientists or be librarians. The important thing is they should be computer savvy and committed to the cause of open access and be able to persuade scientists (faculty and students) in their respective institutions to place their research papers in the archives. Guest speakers: We are inviting Prof. M S Swaminathan, Prof. M S Valiathan, Dr R A Mashelkar and Prof. P Balaram to give guest lectures (on how they, as working scientists, view open access). Two of them will address the participants of the first workshop and the other two the second workshop. Workshop Coordinator: Subbiah Arunachalam, Distinguished Fellow, MSSRF, Chennai. His email address is <arun(a)mssrf.res.in>. Mr S Senthilkumaran and colleagues from the Informatics Division and Ms R V Bhavani of MSSRF will provide technical and managerial support for the event. Nominations of participants may please be sent to Mr S Senthilkumaran, Associate Director, Informatics, MSSRF, Chennai 600 113, India. His email address is <senthil(a)mssrf.res.in>. All participants will be provided guesthouse accommodation and all meals. A few travel grants (First class or Second A/C class by Express train) will be made available, depending on funds available. Some Relevant Documents The Bethesda Statement http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm <http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm> Wellcome Trust, "Scientific Publishing: A Position Statement by the Wellcome Trust in Support of Open Access Publishing," http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtvispolpub.html <http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtvispolpub.html> Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html <http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html> Subbiah Arunachalam: India's march towards open access http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions <http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=243 &language=1> &itemid=243&language=1 M S SWAMINATHAN RESEARCH FOUNDATION Third Cross Street, Taramani Instituional Area, Chennai 600 113 Tel: 044 2254 1229, 2254 2791 Fax: 044 2254 1319 Workshop on Open Access Nomination Institution Name and Address: No. of papers from the Institution annually: Name of the candidate: Designation Date of birth: Qualification: Familiarity with Computers and Internet: Membership in Discussion Groups: Past experience in Electronic Publishing: Familiarity with Open Access: Preferred dates: 2-4 May (Workshop 1) / 6-8 May (Workshop 2) Travel grant: Needed / Not needed Date: Signature of the recommending authority: Signature of the candidate:

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Eprints software milestones and OA workshop
by Mailing List Manager 22 Mar '04

22 Mar '04

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 12:49:14 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Friends: Here are the main Eprints milestones listed by Stevan Harnad in another list I subscribe to. Many lis-forum members may find this useful. Incidentally, participants of the three-day workshop on Open Access to be held at MSSRF, Chennai, in the first week of May will get trained in the use of Eprints software. For more information on the workshop, please contact Mr S Senthilkumaran, Associate Director of Informatics, MSSRF, Chennai 600 113 <senthil(a)mssrf.res.in>. Arun --------- The GNU Eprints software itself, with Chris Gutteridge's continuous upgrades incorporating features requested by the user community <http://software.eprints.org/> Eprints runs an Institutional Archives Registry (not just for Eprints Archives) <http://archives.eprints.org/eprints.php> It currently lists 143 archives (11 of them Dspace, 123 of them Eprints) Please come and register your Archives too! Eprints has also created an Eprints Handbook (funded by the Open Society Institute) to help universities create OAI Archives and to develop procedures and policies for filling them: <http://software.eprints.org/handbook/> Eprints also created and hosts the BOAI self-archiving FAQ: <http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/> as well as the BOAI Forum <http://www.eprints.org/boaiforum.php> Eprints's Steve Hitchcock and other Eprints staff and students have generated the many OpCit projects and papers on citation linking and analysis, self-archiving users surveys, etc. <http://opcit.eprints.org/> Eprints' Tim Brody's citebase <http://citebase.eprints.org/> is a citation-link-based "google" for the OA literature, ranking papers and authors by citation impact or download impact. The download/citation correlator/predictor can also predict eventual citations from today's downloads: <http://citebase.eprints.org/analysis/correlation.php> Eprints deposited in Eprints accordingly focus on the article's reference lists and citation linking. Mike Jewell has created paracite which seeks the full-text of cited articles on the web. <http://paracite.eprints.org/> Eprints has also developed models for university self-archiving policy that universities can consider adopting along with the Eprints software: <http://software.eprints.org/handbook/departments.php> as well as the model Tardis project <http://opcit.eprints.org/feb19prog.html> Eprints's Mike Jewell has also created a standardized OAI CV that universities and research funders can use in research evaluation and performance assessment: <http://paracite.eprints.org/cgi-bin/rae_front.cgi> <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue35/harnad/> Eprints's Tim Brody has also created Celestial, a software that harvests metadata from OAI-compliant repositories and re-exposes that metadata to other services <http://celestial.eprints.org/> as well as an oai-perl library <http://oai-perl.sourceforge.net/> Eprints staff have contributed to many conferences and workshops to promote self-archiving in general (and Eprints in particular), e.g.: <http://opcit.eprints.org/feb19prog.html> Eprints runs three mailing lists for users: EP-General, EP-Tech and EP-Underground <http://software.eprints.org/maillist.php> as well as a demonstration server in which potential adopters can try out the features of Eprints: <http://software.eprints.org/demo.php> Eprints provides powerpoints to be used for the promotion of self-archiving and Open Access Provision: <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/openaccess.ppt> Eprints is conducting an extensive series of digitometric studies to measure and document the dramatic degree to which open access enhances research impact: <http://opcit.eprints.org/feb19oa/brody-impact.pdf> Eprints is also one of the cornerstones of the ePrints-UK Project: <http://www.rdn.ac.uk/projects/eprints-uk/> as well as a contributor to the JISC Romeo Project (on publishers' policies on author self-archiving) <http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/> Stevan Harnad

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Opening for Aditya Birla Group
by Mailing List Manager 22 Mar '04

22 Mar '04

Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 12:42:55 +0530 From: Shivanand <Shivu_murgod(a)hotmail.com> sorry for cross posting- Dear friends, Their is an opening in Aditya Birla Group as Research Information Specialist for Birla Management Corp. Ltd, Mumbai. They are looking for candidates who must be having science (physics/chemistry) or engineering background and proficient in . a.. Create and maintain Technical and Scientific Knowledge Bass for the Corporate Technology Strategy and Services Cell of the Aditya Birla Group. b.. Conduct specialized searches for technical and scientific information c.. Create special reports for Senior Management and select customers d.. Scientific searching on the internet and with specialized services e.. Documentation management f.. Patent searches g.. Good proficiency with computers for search and document management. Experience with following computer applications - Word, Excel, Power Point and Internet tools must posses 3 year hands-on in related field. for more details: visit: http://impact-in.jobstreet.com/Jobs/jobdesc.asp?eid=6211569&jid=186776&did=… Shivanand Gyanodaya Aditya Birla Group

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FW: From Madhan: Eldis document abstract
by Mailing List Manager 19 Mar '04

19 Mar '04

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 11:13:23 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Friends: For those of you interested in building national agricultural information systems, here is an interesting report. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] FERTILE GROUND : OPPORTUNITIES FOR GREATER COHERENCE IN AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS Besemer, H.; Addison, C.; Ferguson, J. International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) (2003) This study examines the current landscape of Internet-based agricultural information services, to identify gaps and inconsistancies, and to suggest avenues for bringing greater coherence to the system as a whole. As the number of ICT-enabled information services increases, the intended user risks being swamped with possibilities to address his or her information needs. The challenge faced by donor-supported agricultural information services is to make it easier for those who need information to find what they are looking for by working together to build a more coherent total system. This report looks at the issue of coherence among agricultural information services from three perspectives: * Service providers: institutions providing development- oriented information services in the agriculture sector * Agriculture stakeholders in the South: information workers addressing the needs of the main clients for the services provided, such as extension workers, researchers and policymakers * Donors: providing financial support to many of the major agricultural information services and systems. <P>What emerges is a picture of an overall system in which there are striking gaps, areas of inefficiency, and duplications, as well as a certain mismatch between the information needs of the South and what is being provided by the current donor-supported services. To address these issues, the authors suggest both practical and policy-oriented actions that all three stakeholder groups can take to ensure a more coherent approach to matching supply and demand. Technical options for ensuring greater flexibility in mixing and matching information from different sources are explored in some detail. The survey and analysis as well as the recommendations presented in this report were verified in a stakeholder workshop hosted by the United Kingdom Department for International Development in London, June 2003. [author] TO SEE THIS DOCUMENT, PLEASE GO TO: http://www.ftpiicd.org/files/research/reports/report19.pdf

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