Friends: Here is an interesting development at MIT, Cambridge. Arun ---------------- MIT's new Scholarly Publishing Consultant MIT has hired a Scholarly Publishing Consultant to advise faculty about their OA options. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) From the announcement on the MIT Libraries News blog: The MIT Libraries now have a half-time position supporting MIT faculty and researchers who have questions about their options and rights in the world of scholarly publishing, which has evolved dramatically with the advent of the digital age. This position has been made possible with support from the Provost’s office. In what ways would a faculty member make use of this new position? For example: * To ask about what rights you have over your own work, and how you can ensure that you have the rights in the future to do what you want with your work; * To ask questions about standard publisher copyright transfer agreements, including the use of MIT’s amendment to such agreements; * To gain feedback about options and rights related to archiving your work on the web, whether via a faculty home page, Dspace, or a discipline-based archive, or another means; * To discuss the options for publishing an article so that it will be openly available, without permission or subscription barriers, whether in a new open access journal or a long-standing journal; or * To ask about open access publication options, and funder or government policies in relation to those options. If you would like to discuss any of these issues, please contact Ellen Finnie Duranceau, who moved into the new position in mid September.... Peter Suber: Another great idea from MIT. Until OA is as familiar as email, every university should have something like this. ___________________________________________________________ All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html