Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 17:24:00 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun@mssrf.res.in> Dear Ms Chandra: Good question! We at MSSRF are holding two workshops on OA with four truly top class experts as resource persons and am insisting that each participant should set up an institutional archive after the workshop. We will provide all the software on a CD. All they need is a Linux server and a decent Internet connection. A number of institutions have sent in nominations. And more nominations are coming in every day. I am talking to key people having a big say in making science policy both here and abroad [e.g. Dr Mashelkar, Prof. Valiathan, Prof. Bruce Alberts, the Open Source Institute, the US National Academy of Sciences, InterAcademy Panel] about the need to proactively promote open access in both forms [OA journals and more importantly OA archives]. I write about OA in international media. I provide important leads to others who want to write about OA. I keep writing to librarians, heads of institutions and government officials. I am not sure if information literacy is a problem. Anyone surfing the Net or reading journals like Nature and Science will come to know of OA. Even if it were a problem, that can be set right with a little effort. Members of this list should talk about it to publishing scientists and research students, write about it and organise small group seminars in their own institutions and library associations. A few weeks ago FRONTLINE carried a detailed article on OA by one of India's best science writers. I am also not sure if open access has picked up in other countries of Asia. I am trying to organise a trination conference (Brazil, China and India) where a number of leading scientists and policymakers from these three countries will look at open access and how it can make the fie;d level playing (as far as access to information is concerned). I work with some very committed people in the UK, Canada and Europe. All of us work with hope. Eventually, many people including a majority of Indian scientists will recognise the value and usefulness of OA. Best wishes. Arun -----Original Message----- From: Mailing List Manager [mailto:mailman@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 1:28 PM To: lis-forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Subject: RE: [LIS-Forum] FW: [BOAI] New PLoS/OSI institutional membership grants (fwd) Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 22:02:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Smita Chandra <smitac_in@yahoo.com> Is there anything that can be done to market the OA initiative among institutions in India ? [truncated]