Feb
12Harvard A & S Faculty Voting on Open Access Scholarly Publishing

The New York Times is reporting that the arts and sciences faculty at Harvard will vote today on an open access repository as a principal means of publishing their scholarly output, . "Under the proposal Harvard would deposit finished papers in an open-access repository run by the library that would instantly make them available on the Internet. Authors would still retain their copyright and could publish anywhere they pleased including at a high-priced journal, if the journal would have them. What distinguishes this plan from current practice, said Stuart Shieber, a professor of computer science who is sponsoring the faculty motion, is that it would create an opt-out system: an article would be included unless the author specifically requested it not be. Mr. Shieber was the chairman of a committee set up by Harvard's provost to investigate scholarly publishing; this proposal grew out of one of the recommendations, he said."