Harvard Law votes Yes on open access: Information Posted by: comforteagle From the The Right Kind dept.: The faculty of Harvard Law School has unanimously approved a motion for open access: articles will be made freely available in an online repository. With the success of this motion, Harvard Law becomes the first law school to make an institutional commitment to open access to its faculty's scholarly publications. The Berkman community is tremendously excited by the news, which resonates deeply with the Center's mission and helps set the stage for other academic institutions to establish open access policies. In February, Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences did just that, unanimously passing an open access motion spearheaded by computer science professor and Berkman faculty co-director Stuart Shieber. (In addition, Harvard College Free Culture has launched a free Thesis Repository!) Professor Shieber's work and leadership, along with that of Harvard library director Robert Darnton, paved the way for Berkman's own Terry Fisher and John Palfrey to bring this open access proposal to the Law School. Published May 08, 2008 - 09:43 AM Read more... Comment

FBI Withdraws Unconstitutional National Security Letter After ACLU and EFF Challenge: Information Posted by: comforteagle From the The Wrong Kind of Open Access dept.: The FBI has withdrawn an unconstitutional national security letter (NSL) issued to the Internet Archive after a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As the result of a settlement agreement, the FBI withdrew the NSL and agreed to the unsealing of the case, finally allowing the Archive's founder to speak out for the first time about his battle against the record demand. "The free flow of information is at the heart of every library's work. That's why Congress passed a law limiting the FBI's power to issue NSLs to America's libraries," said Brewster Kahle, founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. "While it's never easy standing up to the government -- particularly when I was barred from discussing it with anyone -- I knew I had to challenge something that was clearly wrong. I'm grateful that I am able now to talk about what happened to me, so that other libraries can learn how they can fight back from these overreaching demands." Note: Way to go, EFF! Published May 08, 2008 - 09:41 AM Read more... Comment

Australia set to give the go-ahead for Creative Commons licensing: Information Posted by: comforteagle From the Barriers dept.: When you're dealing with a flooding emergency in the middle of the worst drought for many years, the last thing you need is barriers to the sharing of geographical and meteorological information. Yet that's the situation faced by Australia. The authorities' response is to consider the widespread adoption of Creative Commons licences for public-sector information. Published Feb 14, 2008 - 02:46 PM Read more... Comment

Harvard Faculty Adopts Open-Access Requirement: Information Posted by: comforteagle From the Wants to be free dept.: Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted a policy this evening that requires faculty members to allow the university to make their scholarly articles available free online. Peter Suber, an open-access activist with Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group in Washington, said on his blog that the new policy makes Harvard the first university in the United States to mandate open access to its faculty members’ research publications. Published Feb 13, 2008 - 02:01 PM Read more... Comment