[Open-access] Collections of Libre material

Mon Feb 13 14:26:29 UTC 2012

On 13 February 2012 14:14, Tom Olijhoek <tom.olijhoek at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I liked your blogs on @ccess very much. Well done Peter. And your article on
> open access was class storytelling also, Mike.

Thanks, appreciated!

BTW., at about the same time I was also able to place an article in
the Independent:
        http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/02/09/the-future-of-academic-publishing/
so we have reasonably good coverage of the issues in mainstream UK
quality press.  I did try to interest the Telegraph, too, but no reply
from them yet.  (I might try again: I am not going to run out of
material for opinion pieces any time soon :-)

> Especially for scientists access to complete articles and data
> is compulsory, but I guess that for "laymen" illustrative pictures and
> abstracts would be sufficient.

I always get nervous when I see this sort of scientist/layman
distinction, and I think we should work to eradicate such a boundary
as much as possible.  (I was a layman myself until a few years ago,
and would have hated to be fed a watered-down version of research
while an elite priesthood of scientists got the Real Stuff.

> The database should be useful for all.
> Regarding the lack of peer review. Once preview papers are deposited wirh
> @ccess nothing can stop us from using new ways of review and impact
> assessment with the help of the respective scientific communities.

Would there be a role for leveraging F1000 Research, arXiv of Nature
Prededings for this?  I would hate to reinvent a wheel and fragment a
community.  (I don't have anything resembling an actual plan here -- I
am just tossing the idea into the ring in case it provokes any useful
thought.)

-- Mike.