Valerie, Why on earth?The Return of Lady GovDocs, January 12, 2006. Excerpt:
there are some things i just don't get about my library....part of the process for 'acquiring' or providing access to 'open access' or no-fee materials is...contacting the person responsible for the site & getting written notice from them that a license isn't required. (that's right - it's not enough that they're just putting it out there...our legal counsel needs to know that they're not going to sue us for LINKING TO THE SITE.) grr.
Comment. University lawyers are paid to make sure that we err on the side of caution, which in the case of fair-use judgment calls often means that we err on the side of non-use. The hard way to fix this problem is to reform copyright law. The easy way is to make sure that OA content carries some kind of label that it's OA, even if the label isn't as formal as a CC license.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/13/2006 11:30:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
