Update your ebook shelf

Here are two sources worth mentioning. Charles W. Bailey, Jr. announced that The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2008 Annual Edition is available from Digital Scholarship. The second sources, Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts website attempts to keep you abreast of medieval manuscripts available on the web. The Chronicle of Higher Education describes this UCLA project.

Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online

February 12 marked the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. Almost all of Darwin’s works are freely accessible electronically at The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online: the complete publications; 20,000 private papers, the largest Darwin bibliography, manuscript catalogue and hundreds of supplementary works, and much more.

Peter Suber to Speak on OA at Harvard

Peter Suber will present the talk “What is the Future of Open Access?” on Thursday, February 26, at 12:30 pm in Pound Hall 100, Harvard Law School (Map). The talk is co-sponsored by the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication and the Harvard Law School Library. RSVP requested (rsvp@cyber.law.harvard.edu).

More information about this presentation and about Prof. Suber may be accessed at http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/events.php

Two New Open Access Econometric Society Journals

The Econometric Society has just announced that it will publish two new open access journals. (Thanks to Kit Baum, Economics Dept., for this news).

From the announcement:

Starting in 2010, the Econometric Society will publish two new journals, called Quantitative Economics and Theoretical Economics. These will be open access journals, meaning that electronic access will be free for both members and non-members of the Society. Each journal will have its own Editorial Board, with an Editor, several Co-Editors, and a set of Associate Editors. The rules for appointment of the members of the Editorial Board will be identical to those used for Econometrica. Governance of the new journals will, again, be identical to the governance of Econometrica.

Despite these similarities, it is expected that each new journal will develop its own identity. While the new journals will have very high quality requirements, they may experiment more with publishing papers in new research areas. Nevertheless there will be scope for collaboration between the three journals, which will be discussed in a committee that includes the three Editors. . . .

February Issue of SPARC OA Newsletter

Peter Suber recently posted the latest issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. In addition to the usual extensive and valuable round-up of OA activities, events, resources etc., Suber discusses some of the major questions which arise when framing a new OA policy, reviewing an older OA one, or thinking about OA policies elsewhere. The first twelve questions or decisions pertain to funding agencies, the last six to universities. Suber offers a recommendation for each of the eighteen.

Campus-based Publishing Partnerships: A Guide to Critical Issues

SPARC recently published a freely accessible guide, Campus-based Publishing Partnerships: A Guide to Critical Issues. Authored by Raym Crow, the guide provides practical help with setting up successful campus publishing partnerships. From the press release:

. . . .The guide is the core of a new Web site, the Campus-based Publishing Resource Center, designed by a panel of advisors from the library and university press communities to support successful publishing partnerships.

Campus publishing partnerships can offer universities greater control over the intellectual products that they help create. But to fully realize this potential, partnerships need to evolve from ad hoc working alliances to stable, long-term collaborations. SPARC’s guide will help partnering organizations t0

--Establish practical governance and administrative structures;
--Identify funding models that accommodate the different financial objectives of libraries and presses;
--Define objectives that advance the missions of both the library and of the press, without disrupting the broader objectives of either; and
--Demonstrate the value of the collaboration to university administrators.

Campus-based Publishing Partnerships will help libraries, presses, and other campus units to structure successful partnerships—and to recognize when collaboration is not the right course of action. The guide reviews current library-press initiatives, describes the potential benefits of partnerships, and provides an overview of the financial and operating criteria for launching and sustaining a successful collaboration. It provides practical guidance on structuring a publishing partnership, including case studies that illustrate key concepts.

Robert Darnton on "Google & the Future of Books"

Robert Darnton, Head of Harvard’s Libraries, has an interesting article, Google & the Future of Books, in the latest NY Review of Books. A strong advocate of the democratization of knowledge, Darnton ponders the Google book digitization project (Harvard’s libraries were among the first to partner with Google in this initiative) and implications resulting from last October’s settlement of a class action suit brought by authors and publishers. Darnton asks provocative questions – drawing much from the background of the Enlightenment and the Republic of Letters!

Article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22281?email