Open Access and Open Source
LIS-505 Introduction to Library & Information
Studies
March 22, 2010
Types of Publishers
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Trade
Professional
Scholarly
Educational
University
Vanity
Publishers
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Authority in science, technical and medical fields
 Peer Review
 Bibliographic Control
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Electronic journals
 Access to full-text articles.
Copyright: Historical Origins
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French Revolution – Did not seek to ensure
individual rights over meanings and truths but
instead to ensure their exchange, conflict and social
negotiation.
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Enhanced role of author used as a pragmatic
strategy.
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Developed from a Romantic period idea of
authorship.
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Information & Society
November 7, 2007
Copyright: Historical Origins
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Rise of publication technologies
Rise of new industrial elite
Forfeiting of rights by authors
Berne Convention (Damich, 1990)
Economic rights of copyright
Property rights
Moral rights
Wilkinson, M.A. and Gerolami, N. (2004) The information context of moral rights under the copyright
regime. Julien, H. and Thompson, S. eds. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the
Canadian Association for Information Science. June 2-3, 2004, Winnipeg, MB: Canadian
Association for Information Science.
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Information & Society
November 7, 2007
3 Groups in Balance
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Creators
Publishers
Users (institutions e.g. libraries,
schools, etc.)
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Information & Society
November 7, 2007
Copyright: Digital Challenges
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Licensing issues
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Ownership.
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Archival issues
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Information & Society
November 7, 2007
Is this the future??
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Open Access: Definition (BOAI)
Budapest Open Access Initiative
 Freely available on the public Internet
 Can be read, downloaded, copied, distributed, printed,
searched, linked to, or used as data for software by users
 No technical, legal, or financial barriers other than
access to the Internet
 “Gold” and “Green” approach
Open Access
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New form of scholarly communication
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Socially responsible, equitable
Democratization of knowledge
Sharing of research = sharing and building of
knowledge
Concentrated in social and biomedical sciences.
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Equal or increased citations in Life Sciences,
Engineering, Chemistry, etc.
Impact factor of OA journals?
Scholarly Communication System
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Creation – Scholars
Quality control (i.e. peer review) – Scholars
Production – Publishers
Distribution – Publishers and libraries
Consumption – scholars, students, non-scholars.
Infrastructure – universities, governments, granting
institutions, and taxpayers
The Open Access Question
Open Access Policies (General)
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Copy of a final manuscript accepted for publication in a peerreviewed journal to be deposited into an online repository
approved/sanctioned by the granting agency.
Repositories must be stable digital repositories
 Must provide free public access to the manuscript,
maximum interoperability, provisions for longterm
preservation of and access
Free, public availability of manuscripts must be enabled as
soon as possible after publication
 Current time period defining “as soon as possible”
ranging from 0 to 12 months after publication in a peerreviewed journal.
Open Access:
Advantages & Disadvantages
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Equalizes the access to scholarly
journals
Wider and larger audience
Initiatives for developing world?
Facilitated transfer of knowledge
Quality control? Standards?
More author control over publication
of work
Faster dissemination of research
results (e.g. through self-archiving)
Institutional publishing – putting it in
local hands
Economic advantage – cheaper to
produce
“Author pays” system. Peer Review?
Interested? Authors’ wishes?
Bibliographic control?
Proper vetting by reputable
publishers?
OA costs? Advertising? Long-term
availability? Subscriptions? Fair price?
Open Source Software: What is it
and Where Did it Come From?
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Not Open Access
Not shareware or freeware.
The source code is always available
Evolved out of the hacker culture
Named at a meeting in c1998
Completely volunteer
Quality control
Open Source Software
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“Both a philosophy and a process” (Morgan)
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Need for a strong primary developer
Need for good communication and a sense of
community
Socio-economic aspects of OSS – it is not just a
set of computer programs
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Four Freedoms of Free Software
(Stallman)
With free software, the individual has the following
freedoms:
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Freedom to run the program for any purpose
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Freedom to modify the program
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Freedom to redistribute copies for free or for a fee
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Freedom to distribute modified versions of the program
The Concept of “Copyleft”
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Program is copyrighted
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Distribution terms are added
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Code and freedoms become legally inseparable
Open Source: Potential Problems
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Lack of computing, human, and managerial
resources
 e.g. on-site computer programmers
Rapidly evolving technologies
Maintenance issues
Financial concerns
Patents
Open Source: Advantages
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Can offer features not offered by commercial sector
Can “take control” of library services and collections
that rely on computer software
Solving local problems builds staff expertise
OSS not subject to commercial hype so can be more
objectively evaluated
Potential to create knowledge rather than just
gathering information
The Open Source Initiative
What can happen when you think you can guess the URL
(i.e. Open Source Initiative)!
http://www.osi.org/
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Open Source Initiative URL:
http://www.opensource.org/