I started my newsletter because there were no news sources specifically focused on open-access news. Even now research on this subject is hampered because the most widespread searching or cataloging keywords ("open access" and "FOS") are not sufficiently widespread. However, many niche news sources cover topics with some overlap or relation to open access. To find news on open-access developments, I look for news on these overlapping topics, read a lot, and filter most of it out. One way to tell when the open-access movement has succeeded is that a news gatherer like me would only have to read 1-2 times more material than turns out to be relevant rather than 10-20 times. (Unscientific footnote: I estimate that the "chaff ratio" has declined from about 20 in 2001 to about 6 in 2003, a sign of progress.) Meantime, I must cast the net widely for a large number of topics in a large number of newsletters, listservs, discussion forums, online journals, current awareness services, industry portals, blogs, RSS feeds, customized news alerts, news search engines, page-change alerts, and usenet monitors. Here is a selection of the most useful sources, not counting my email correspondents. It emphasizes those that are free, but only because I can't afford most priced sources.
So far this does not include the many web pages of organizations and projects with "news" or "what's new" sections. I'll add them soon.
To go beyond my newsletter and blog in following developments on open access, or to follow news on neighboring topics in some depth, I have two suggestions. For every site that offers email notification, subscription, current awareness, or push options, sign up. For sites that do not, assign some page-change alert service to notify you of updates automatically. Receiving a lot of email is the price of staying up to date. If you don't need to be up to date continuously, and are willing to make an energetic and time-consuming effort whenever you do need to be up to date, then a large bookmark collection may be good enough.
My purpose in making this list public is to show where I find news about open access (making this an "open source" news medium), to suggest sources for news on related topics, and above all to give thanks to those whose work I find most useful.
If you know of other relevant sources that I ought to consider, please let me know.
Peter Suber
Last revised June 28, 2003.
Blogs
- Copyfight. From Donna Wentworth.
- GrepLaw. From the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
- InfoAnarchy. From Erik Möller.
- LawMeme. From Ernest Miller.
- LibLog. From the Redwood City Public Library.
- Library Geek. From T.J. Sondermann.
- Peter Scott's Library Blog. From Peter Scott.
- Library Planet. From Michael Pate.
- Library Techlog. From Matthew Eberle.
- LIS News. From a collective of contributors.
- Noteworthy. From NFAIS = National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services.
- Scholarly Electronic Publishing. From Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
- ResourceShelf. From Gary Price.
Journals
- Ariadne
- The Charleston Advisor. "Critical Reviews of Web Products for Information Professionals."
- The Craft. "Evolving the Art and Science of Electronic Scholarly Publication."
- Cultivate Interactive
- D-Lib Magazine. "A monthly magazine about innovation and research in digital libraries."
- Educause Review. "Exploring the Impact of Information Technologies on Higher Education."
- First Monday. "Peer-reviewed journal on the internet."
- Information Commons. "An online publication advocating access to ideas." (Published by the American Library Association.)
- Journal of Digital Information. "Publishing papers on the management, presentation and uses of information in digital environments."
- Journal of Electronic Publishing
- Journal of Information Law and Technology
- Learned Publishing
- Library Hi-Tech
- Libres. "Library and Information Science Research Electronic Journal."
- Perspectives in Electronic Publishing
- portal. "Libraries and the Academy."
- The Serials Librarian
Listservs, announcement lists, discussion forums
- Action [to Save the Public Domain]. Moderated by Erik Möller.
- ALPSP list. From ALPSP = Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers.
- BOAI Forum. From the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Moderated by Peter Suber.
- C-FIT list. From C-FIT = Committee for Independent Technology, and Seth Johnson.
- CNI-Announce. From CNI = Coalition for Networked Information.
- CNI-Copyright. From CNI = Coalition for Networked Information, and Educause.
- Cyber-Rights Mailing List. From CPSR = Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.
- Digital Promise list. From the Digital Promise Project.
- DigLib. Digital library discussion from IFLA = International Federation of Library Associations.
- DSpace list. From MIT's DSpace project.
- EFF Press List. From EFF = Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- ERIL list. From ERIL = Electronic Resources in Libraries.
- JISC-DNER list. From JISC = Joint Information Systems Committee and DNER = Distributed National Electronic Resource.
- LibLicense. Licensing Digital Information. Moderated by Ann Okerson.
- Library Link. "Current awareness for the information professional." From Library Link.
- Lis-elib list. From eLib = Electronic Libraries Programme, and Philip Hunter.
- OAI-Eprints list. From OAI = Open Archives Initiative.
- OAI-General list. From OAI = Open Archives Initiative.
- Politech. From Declan McCullagh.
- Red Rock Eater News Service. From Phil Agre.
- ScholComm. The scholarly communication discussion list from the ALA = American Library Assocation.
- September98-Forum. (aka American Scientist list, AmSci list.) Moderated by Stevan Harnad.
- SPARC-IR. On institutional repositories. From SPARC = Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
Newsletters, newspapers, custom news bots and services
- Chronicle News Briefings. From the Chronicle of Higher Education. Subscription required.
- CIT Infobits. From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Cites & Insights. From Walt Crawford.
- CLIR Issues. CLIR = Council on Library and Information Resources.
- Copyright, New Media Law, and E-Commerce News. From Lesley Ellen Harris.
- Current Awareness Application of New Technologies in Libraries. From Erik Arfeuille.
- Current Cites list. From Current Cites.
- Digital Freedom Network Press List. From the Digital Freedom Network.
- eCulture. "A newsletter on cultural content and digital heritage." From the EU's CORDIS = Community Research and Development Information Service.
- DigiNews. From RLG = Research Libraries Group.
- Educause Online. From Educause.
- Edupage. From Educause.
- EFFector Newsletter. From EFF = Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- EI.pub Weekly. "Electronic Publishing R&D News and Resources." From the EU's IST = Information Society Technologies Programme.
- euroCRIS News. From Eric Zimmerman.
- The Filter. From Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
- GigaLaw. "Legal Information for Internet Professionals." From GigaLaw.
- GILC Alert. From GILC = Global Internet Liberty Campaign.
- High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine. From CERN = European Organization for Nuclear Research.
- ICSTI Forum. From ICSTI = International Council for Scientific and Technical Information.
- IMLS Newsletter. From IMLS = Institute of Museum and Library Services.
- Information Today. From Information Today, Inc.
- Internet Law News. From BNA and Michael Geist.
- Internet Resources Newsletter. From Roddy Macleod, Catherine Ure, and Catherine Ferguson.
- Internet Scout Report. From the Internet Scout Project at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
- Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship. From the library of UCSB = University of California at Santa Barbara.
- LANL Research Library Newsletter. From LANL = Los Alamos National Laboratory.
- LIS News. From LIS = Library and Information Science News.
- Managing Information Newsletter. From Robeel Haq.
- Moreover News Feeds. I subscribe to many categories, including online content, online information, online legal issues, online search engines, tech policy, xml and metadata.
- News Agent for Libraries. (A customizable news service that delivers news by email even though this link is nearly always dead.)
- Newsbytes. Technology news from the Washington Post.
- NewsLink. From Information Today, Inc.
- Online Publishing News. From Online Publishing News.
- Planet eBook Newsletter. From Planet eBook.
- ResearchBuzz and the ResearchBuzz KnickKnack Drawer. From Tara Calishain.
- QuickLinks. (Internet law.) From Richard Swetenham.
- SearchDay. From Search Engine Watch and Chris Sherman.
- Search Engine Report. From Search Engine Watch and Danny Sullivan.
- Serials eNews. From the UKSG = United Kingdom Serials Group.
- ShelfLife. From the RLG = Research Libraries Group.
- SPARC E-News. From SPARC = Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
- SPARC Europe News. From SPARC Europe.
Collections of Conferences
I've moved the list of sources that I check for relevant conferences to the conference page.
Return to the Newsletter
Return to the Blog
Peter Suber
Research Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College
Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge
Senior Researcher, SPARC
peters@earlham.edu
Copyright © 2001-2003, Peter Suber. This is an open-access document.