One World, Science.World

A hopeful development here:

Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, Under Secretary for Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has signed an agreement with Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, to collaborate on the development of a global science gateway. The gateway would eventually make science information resources of many nations accessible via a single Internet portal.

Called ‘Science.world,’ the planned resource would be available for use by scientists in all nations and by anyone interested in science. The approach will capitalise on existing technology to search vast collections of science information distributed across the globe, enabling much-needed access to smaller, less well-known sources of highly valuable science. Following the model of Science.gov, the U.S. interagency science portal that relies on content published by each participating agency, ‘Science.world’ will rely on scientific resources published by each participating nation. Other countries have been invited to participate in this international effort.

I particularly liked the following paragraph:

Increasingly science projects are international in scope, with researchers across the globe collaborating on projects as diverse as energy, linear colliders, genomes and the environment. At the same time, the US and UK have recognised the importance of providing their citizens with one-stop electronic access to increasing volumes of science information, with a growing sense of the need for reciprocity and sharing of science knowledge across national boundaries.

Looks like another reason that this sort of thing is doomed to fail. (Via Open Access News.)

Digital Library of the Commons

OnTheCommons has an interesting post about a new book called Understanding Knowledge as a Commons. This sounds great - see Peter Suber's comment below for details on open access to its contents. but sadly - and ironically - seems not to be open access (though I'd bet that Peter Suber's contribution to the collection is doubtless available somewhere),. However, tThis article did mention something I'd not come across before: the Digital Libary of the Commons.

This turns out to be a wonderful resource:

a gateway to the international literature on the commons. This site contains an author-submission portal; an archive of full-text articles, papers, and dissertations; the Comprehensive Bibliography of the Commons; a Keyword Thesaurus, and links to relevant reference sources on the study of the commons.

Among the list of commons areas, there is Information and Knowledge Commons:

anticommons, copyright, indigenous, local, scientific knowledge issues, intellectual property rights, the Internet, libraries, patents, virtual commons, etc.

Strange that free software is not included. But good, nonetheless.

BLimey

The British Library is not normally regarded as a beacon of enlightened thought when it comes to intellectual monopolies - it's in cahoots with Microsoft for much of it's IT stuff. But this "IP Manifesto" is decidely clueful:

1 Digital is not different – Fair dealing access and library privilege should apply to the digital world as is the case in the analogue one.

2 Contracts and DRM – New, potentially restricting technologies (such as DRMs /TPMs) and contracts issued with digital works should not exceed the statutory exceptions for fair dealing access allowed for in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

3 Archiving – Libraries should be allowed to make copies of sound (and film) recordings to ensure they can be preserved for posterity in the future.

4 Term of copyright – The copyright term for sound recording rights should not be extended without empirical evidence and the needs of society as a whole being borne in mind.

5 Orphan works – The US model of dealing with orphan works should be considered for the UK.

6 Unpublished works – The length of copyright term for unpublished works should be retrospectively brought in line with other terms – life plus 70 years.

(Via Open Access News.)

UK PubMed Central: Good News, Bad News?

The US PubMed Central service has become one of the cornerstones of biomedical research, and a major milestone on the way towards full open access to all scientific knowledge.

Just as the world's central genomic database GenBank exists in three global zones - the US, Europe and Japan - so the natural step would be to roll out PubMed Central as an international service. The first move towards that has now been made with the announcement that a consortium of UK institutions has been chosen to set up UK PubMed Central (UKPMC). That's the good news. The bad news - maybe - is that one of them is the British Library.

Why is that bad news, since the British Library is one of the pre-eminent libraries in the world? Well, that may be so, but it is also deeply involved with Microsoft's Open XML, the rival to OpenDocument Format; Microsoft is trying to push Open XML through a standardisation process to match ODF's full ISO status. It is particularly regrettable that the British Library is bolstering this pseudo-standard with its support, rather than wholeheartedly backing ODF, a totally open, vendor-independent standard, and this could be real problem because of the British Library's role in the UKPMC consortium:

In the initial stages of the UKPMC programme, the British Library will lead on setting up the service, developing the process for handling author submissions and marketing the resource to the research community.

It's the "handling authors submissions" that could be bad news: if, for example, the British Library gave any preference for submissions be made in Microsoft's XML format formats, it would be a huge step back for openness. The US PubMed Central does the Right Thing, and takes submissions in either XML or SGML. Let's hope the UK PubMed Central follows suit and goes for a neutral submissions policy. (Via Open Access News.)

Obviously...Not

The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) has released its response to the British Library's Content Strategy. It's a wonderful demonstration that they don't really know what is going to hit them:

We believe that a shift towards the provision of online rather than physical access is appropriate. However, customer expectations of what is possible with online content are limited only by the capabilities of the technology, and not by realistic business considerations; at the extreme, every UK citizen might expect free online access, and unhindered re-use, at home or at work to everything in the Library’s collection, which would obviously destroy the market for publishers.

Obviously. Not.

Saying that online access will "obviously" destroy the market for publishers is akin to saying - as was said - that television will obviously kill the cinema, that the cinema will obviously kill the theatre etc. etc. Those who are the gatekeepers of older technologies always fear new ones that will reduce their powers. But what happens is that new technologies tend to create new opportunities even for the older ones they appear to threaten - at least to those who are open-minded enough.

Two classic examples: MP3s have created a huge demand for songs that are no longer in the catalogues, and P2P networks are full of videos of old television shows. Think how much money they owners of these materials could make if they decided to satisfy this demand themselves, instead of trying to stifle it.

It's the same with books. Providing online versions does not kill the need for books; indeed, it is likely to encourage people to buy more, for one very simple reason. The text that you read online is not the text you read in a book, even though the characters are similar: it lacks the physical experience of bookness. It is that - not the text - that book publishers are ultimately selling.

"Obviously", judging by the comments above, and by many others elsewhere, it's going to take a long hard battle to din this idea into the heads of those in the publishing industry. (Via Open Access News.)

British "Library", National Disgrace

A stunningly good - and staggeringly depressing - article on Groklaw examines how the British Library has sold its intellectual soul for a mess of DRM'ed pottage.

Groklaw explains in appalling detail how it is now a waste of time trying to get anything digital from the BL, since it will be locked down with idiotic DRM, will require you to sign away all rights past, present and future (and those of your family, dog and local hairdresser) and probably won't work on any system not identical to the one that sits on Bill Gates' desk.

Somebody should have told the BL that you need a long spoon when you sup with the devil, but having chosen Microsoft as its "partner" (i.e. the brain surgeon carrying out the frontal lobotomy), it now cannot think straight. Worse, it wants to spread its spongiform encephalopathy to the nascent European Digital Libary.

The so-called British "Library", as we must now call it, is a total and utter disgrace to the country.