Tom Roper's Weblog

Googleprint: EPS Online Debate

I don't know how interesting this is going to be, it will depend on the contributors. EPS Online Debate.

Open Letter to Research Councils UK: Rebuttal of ALPSP Critique - Open Access Archivangelism

An open letter to Reseach Councils UK, signed by  some of the great names of open access in the UK and giving a step-by-step rebuttal of the things the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers had to say:
Open Letter to Research Councils UK: Rebuttal of ALPSP Critique - Open Access Archivangelism.

Times Higher: letter on Open Access

Paul Ayris and Stephen Pinfield reply cogently to René Olivieri's (Chief Executive of Blackwell Publishers) piece on open access in the previous issue.
Time Higher August 26 2005 1706:15
Online version only available to subscribers.

Open Access editorial in Health Information and Libraries Journal

The latest Health Information and Libraries Journal has an editorial on open access:
Walton, Graham
Negotiation in health libraries: a case study of Health Information and Libraries Journal and open access publishing
Health Information and Libraries Journal 2005 22(3):161-3

CiteULike

I have known about CiteULike in a vague sense for some months, but only recently have started to use it. I was inspired by some training I did on Reference Manager recently; to make it a little more exciting, I thought I'd throw the idea of social software and shared citation database in at he end. Then it occurred to me that I really ought to be using it myself.
So you will soon find a CiteULike link in the sidebar.
http://www.citeulike.org/user/tomroper

Proposal to make BMJ online free fails

A proposal to make the BMJ online free failed at their conference in Manchester. With hindsight we should have made better use of the happy accidents of the BMA and CILIP being in the same city at the same time.

iTunes for journals?

An intriguing idea in the BMJ letters this week. Nicholas Moore proposes an iTunes-like model for pay-per-view access to single electronic journals articles.
Moore, N D Online music model could work for journals BMJ 2005;330:1391 (11 June)

JISC questions and answers on open access

JISC (why the strange habit of calling them "the JISC" I wonder...always sounds odd and pretentious to me) have published some questions and answers on open access and repositories

Prevailing publishing system is irrevocably broken

A defence of open access in today's BMJ from staff at PLoS Medicine
Yamey G, Gass, A
Prevailing publishing system is irrevocably broken
BMJ 2005;330:1211 (21 May)

ALPSP alarmism

There's a slightly alarmist report in the BMJ based on views from the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. It reports reaction to Research Councils UK's proposals (which aren't out yet: the RCUK website says "RCUK has agreed a position statement on access to and dissemination of the outputs of research funded by the Research Councils. This information was circulated to Vice-Chancellors in March, to give them an opportunity to comment before the document is finalised. RCUK expect to formally release the statement in its definitive form in mid-May 2005").
Research councils' requirements could bankrupt academic journals -- Mayor 330 (7497): 923 -- BMJ.