Preprints are in the air! A few weeks ago, Stephen Curry had a piece about them in the Guardian (Peer review, preprints and the speed of science) and pterosaur palaeontologist Liz Martin published Preprints in science on her blog Musings of Clumsy Palaeontologist . The latter in particular has spawned a prolific and fascinating comment stream.

Am 28. September ist Open Library of Humanities (OLH) offiziell gestartet. OLH ist eine Plattform für Open-Access-Zeitschriften im Feld von Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften und betreibt sein eigenes gleichnamiges Megajournal. Die Ähnlichkeit zu PLOS ist erkennbar, endet jedoch an einem entscheidenden Punkt: OLH verlangt keine Zahlungen von Autorinnen und Autoren.

Open Access in Holland. Nationallizenzen in der Schweiz. Die Prioritäten könnten unterschiedlicher nicht sein. Deutlich wurde dies anhand zweier Vorträge an den vergangenen Open Access Tage an der Universität Zürich. Zum einen die Präsentation des Bibliotheksdirektors von Leiden über die bemerkenswerten Entwicklungen in Holland, zum andern die Präsentation zum 10-Mio-CHF-Projekt Nationallizenzen in der Schweiz.

A quick note to say that I got an email today — the University of Bristol Staff Bulletin — announcing some extremely welcome news: {.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-12446 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“12446” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2015/09/17/the-university-of-bristols-new-openaccess-policy/bristol-oa/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/bristol-oa.png” orig-size=“950,298” comments-opened=“1”

Yesterday, I tried to read a piece of research, relevant to my interests that was published in 1949. Sadly as is usual, I hit a paywall asking me for £30 + tax to read it (I didn’t pay). Hincks, W. D. 1949. IV.—systematic and synonymic notes on passalidae (col.). Annals and Magazine of Natural History 2:56-64.

Wouldn’t it be great if, after a meeting like the 2015 SVPCA, there was a published set of proceedings? A special issue of a journal, perhaps, that collected papers that emerge from the work presented there. Of course the problem with special issues, and edited volumes in general, is that they take forever to come out.

Today (2015-09-01), marks the public announcement of Research Ideas & Outcomes (RIO for short), a new open access journal for all disciplines that seeks to open-up the entire research cycle with some truly novel features I know what you might be thinking: *Another open access journal? Really? * Myself, nor Daniel Mietchen simply wouldn’t be involved with this project if it was just another boring open access journal.

Was bezahlt die ETH Bibliothek an Elsevier, Springer und Wiley? Die Antwort auf diese einfache Frage liegt nun nach gut 14 Monaten und einem Entscheid der ersten Rekursinstanz (EDÖB) vor. Werfen wir nun also einen Blick in diese nun erstmals öffentlich zugänglichen Daten (auch als XLSX). Die ETH-Bibliothek schlüsselte die Ausgaben wie von mir gewünscht in Datenbanken, E-Books und Zeitschriften auf.

[Update 2015-09-19: since writing this, I notice my open access article has now been unpaywalled at Wiley’s site. No-one from Wiley has reached out to me to explain how, why, or when this happened. No compensation has been offered, nor any apology. I note that all the other articles in the special section, which should also be open access (CC BY) are still on sale, behind a paywall.

I read some sad news on Twitter recently. The Ecological Society of America has decided to publish its journals with Wiley: Whilst I think the decision to move away from their old, unloved publishing platform is a good one. The move to publish their journals with Wiley is a strategically poor one. In this post I shall explain my reasoning and some of the widespread dissatisfaction with the direction of this change.