Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 10:46:56 -0600 From: Gerry Mckiernan The proceedings of the ICSTI/INIST/INSERM Seminar on Open Access to Scientific and Technical Information:State of the Art and Future held January 23-24, 2003 at the French Ministry of Research, Carr des Sciences, Paris, was recently published in a special issue of _Information Services & Use_ (v 23 (n. 2-3) (ISSN 0167-5265) (IOS Press (http://www.iospress.nl ). The issue includes the following major themes and notable papers: **Open Access: What Does It Mean for STI Distribution** o Open Access: marginal or core phenomenon? a commercial publisher's view (Pieter Bolman) o Open publishing: how publishers are reacting (Sally Morris) A brief overview of the OAI protocol and its potential impact (Andy Powell) **Open Access: Economic Models and Legal Implications** o Ingenta's economic and technical models for providing institutional OAarchives (Geoffrey Bilder) Open Access publishing (Jan Velterop) o Libraries and institutional infrastructure for Open Access services (Elmar Mittler) o The legal framework for access to STI (Thomas Dreier) **Open Access: Challenges for the Scientific Community** o Mathematics and databases: Open Access (Laurent Guillop) o The Centre for Direct Scientific Communication (Daniel Charnay) o The research-impact cycle (Stevan Harnad) **Open Access: Issues for Developing Countries** o Round Table: Open Access issues for developing countries (Kay Raseroka, Barbara Kirsop, Jean-Jacques Pierrat, Georges Malamoud, Barbara Aronson, Manfred Spiesberger) **Open Access: Projects and Initiatives** o Institutional repositories and Open Access: the future of scholarly communication (David Prosser) o The Budapest Initiative for Open Access (Jean-Claude Gudon) o FIGARO and Open Access to electronic information objects (Stefan Gradmann) o E-BioSci: Semantic networks of biological information (Les Grivell). The issue also contains a lengthy review titled "Open Access to Scientific and Technical Information: The State of the Art" prepared by Jack Franklin, ASFRAbv, Edam, The Netherlands (http://www.inist.fr/openaccess/en/etat_art.php), transcripts of Questions & Answers sessions, welcome and closing addresses, and a summary of discussions with commentary. An OCLC record for the issue is available [OCLC # 53966590] thanks to my Cataloging Colleagues at the ISU Library! I encourage all who own the journal to analyze it for their local OPAC. **Ironically, while the proceedings is a major contribution to the Open Access literature and movement, it is *not* Open Access [:-( ]. However, some authors have self-archived a version of their presentations [:-)]** [Google Author/Title to see who has self-archived] *** Perhaps, in the spirit of the Season, the publisher would make this issue available as their Free (Electronic) Sample Issue - How About It IOS Press? *** IMHO This is an important collection that should be required reading in the New Year for every librarian and those who wish they were {:-> Joy! /Gerry Gerry McKiernan New Year Librarian Iowa State University Ames IA 50011