Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, April 23, 2004

Where are three of the submissions to the UK inquiry?

Tom Roper, Why is the open accesss debate not conducted openly? An April 23 posting to his blog. Roper asks why the CILIP, CURL, and SCONUL submissions to the UK inquiry are not yet online for public reading. When he put the question to the three organizations, he was told that "the Clerk of the Committee forbids the publication of evidence until the Committee has completed its discussions." (PS: My understanding is that there was such an embargo, but only until certain kinds of evidence could be delivered orally, which for most organizations was March 1 or March 8. Are CILIP, CURL, and SCONUL exceptions? Did they become free to post their submissions on April 21, when the "library panel" of witnesses testified? Many groups that initially kept their written submission offline at the Committee's request have now put them online. The best list of them is maintained by BMC.)