ISSUES IN SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION
A NEWSLETTER FOR THE UIUC COMMUNITY
Issue 2/05
January 24, 2005
Paula Kaufman, University Librarian, Editor
CALL FOR A CANADIAN NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY
Michael Geist, National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary, The Toronto Star, January 10, 2005. Excerpt: 'While the last decade centered on access to the Internet, the dominant issue this decade is focused on access to the content on the Internet. To address that issue, the federal government should again think big. One opportunity is to greatly expand the National Library of Canada's digital efforts by becoming the first country in the world to create a comprehensive national digital library. The library, which would be fully accessible online, would contain a digitally scanned copy of every book, government report, and legal decision ever published in Canada....By extending the library to government documents and court decisions, it would help meet the broader societal goal of providing all Canadians with open access to their laws and government policies. Moreover, since the government holds the copyright associated with its own reports and legal decisions, it is able to grant complete, unrestricted access to all such materials immediately alongside the approximately 100,000 Canadian books that are already part of the public domain.' Open Access News 1/12/05 http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1105312209757
WHY THE NIH POLICY ANNOUNCEMENT WAS DELAYED
Bradie Metheny, NIH Public Access Publishing Policy Release Postponed, Washington Fax, January 12, 2005 (the article is not online). Excerpt: 'White House political strategy was behind the decision to postpone indefinitely an NIH teleconference set for January 11 to announce a new policy designed to accelerate the public's access to published articles resulting from NIH-funded research. The meeting was cancelled so controversy surrounding the policy would not slow down Senate confirmation hearings for Michael Leavitt, the President's nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, sources close to the political and congressional affairs arm of the Administration said. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator and former Utah Governor Leavitt is scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee January 18. The Senate Finance Committee will consider his nomination separately on January 19.' Open Access News 1/12/05
COMMON PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORIST ATTACKS ON INTERNET
Some 66% of the experts responding to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and Elon University agreed with the following prediction: At least one devastating attack will occur in the next 10 years on the networked information infrastructure or the country's power grid. In addition, there was notable agreement among the 1,286 experts in this survey that in the next 10 years the internet will be more deeply integrated in our physical environments and high-speed connections will proliferate - with mixed results. They believe the dawning of the blog era will bring radical change to the news and publishing industry and they think the internet will have the least impact on religious institutions. Some other predictions with which a majority of respondents agreed:
* 59% of these experts agreed with a prediction that more government and business surveillance will occur as computing devices proliferate and become embedded in appliances, cars, phones, and even clothes.
* 57% of them agreed that virtual classes will become more widespread in formal education and that students might at least occasionally be grouped with others who share their interests and skills, rather than by age.
* 56% of them agreed that as telecommuting and home-schooling expand, the boundary between work and leisure will diminish and family dynamics will change because of that.
* 50% of them believe that anonymous, free, music file-sharing on peer-to-peer networks will still be easy to perform a decade from now.
At the same time, there were stark disagreements among experts about whether internet use would foment a rise in religious and political extremist groups, whether internet use would usher in more participation in civic organizations, and whether the widespread adoption of technology in the health system would ameliorate the most knotty problems in the system such as rising costs and medical errors. "Nobody knows for sure what lies ahead - and the history of the internet has taught us to expect the unexpected - but this group of experts provides the perspective of long experience. Half were online before the advent of the Web," said Susannah Fox, associate director of the Pew Internet Project and lead author of the report. "Institutions that resist change, like education and health care, come in for the sharpest criticism among these information revolutionaries." The experts were relatively unconvinced about two suggested impacts of the internet related to democratic politics and processes:
* Just 32% of these experts agreed that people would use the internet to support their political biases and filter out information that disagrees with their views. Half the respondents disagreed with or disputed that prediction.
* Only 32% agreed with a prediction that online voting would be secure and widespread by 2014. Half of the respondents disagreed or disputed that idea.
The survey was conducted online between September 20 and November 1, 2004. It grew out of an effort by the Pew Internet Project and the Elon University School of Communications to look at predictions made about the impact of the internet in the period between 1990 and 1995. A database of more than 4,000 predictions and commentary by experts is available at http://www.elon.edu/predictions/ and those who go to the site are invited to make their own predictions. The predictions from this survey are being added to the database.
NATURE ANNOUNCES CHANGE TO SELF-ARCHIVING POLICY
As of January 2005, authors of original research papers published by Nature Publishing Group (NPG) will be encouraged to submit the author's version of the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript to their relevant funding body's archive, for release six months after publication. In addition, authors will also be encouraged to archive their version of the manuscript in their institution's repositories (as well as on their personal web sites), also six months after the original publication. This policy has been developed to extend the reach of scientific communications, and to meet the needs of authors and the evolving policies of funding agencies that may wish to archive the research they fund. It is also designed to protect the integrity and authenticity of the scientific record, with the published version clearly identified as the definitive version of the article…. NPG recognizes the balance of rights held by publishers, authors, their institutions and their funders (Zwolle Principles, 2002), and has been a progressive and active participant in the recent debates about access to the literature (see http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/). In 2002, NPG was one of the first publishers to allow authors to post their contributions on their personal web sites, by requesting an exclusive license-to-publish, rather than requiring authors to transfer copyright. We see this most recent development as another step forward in the evolution of scientific communication on the Internet. We plan to actively support the self-archiving process, and we will take further steps in the coming months to facilitate this. We will continue to work with our authors, readers, subscribers, and site license holders to develop our policies, publications and services in line with their needs. By recognizing the rights and needs of all relevant stakeholders, we hope to ensure that NPG enhances its position as the world's highest impact publisher. For more information, go to www.nature.com. SPARC-OAForum@arl.org; boai-forum@ecs.soton.ac.uk
MORE PREDICTIONS FOR 2005
From John Battelle, one of the cofounders of Wired Magazine and the founder and former Chair of Standard Media International, publisher of The Industry Standard and TheStandard.com:
· Yahoo! and Google will both test systems that combine local merchant inventory information with search, so that merchants can use search as a direct sales channel.
· Firefox will near 15% of total browser share.
· Microsoft will lose search share before it gains it back later in the year when the integration of MSN search starts to scale with new versions of Office and IE.
· Google will introduce Video search, but it will stay in Labs.
· Mobile will finally be plugged into the Web in a way that makes sense for the average user.
· By the end of the year, there will be no question that search is a media business, and that the major players in search are major players in the content business.
View the predictions OCLC ABSTRACTS - January 10, 2005 (Vol. 8, No. 2) http://battellemedia.com/archives/001151.php
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The Berkman Center's Digital Media Project has released a new research report that examines emerging business models for digital media distribution and the policy questions they raise. While Shawn Fanning's SNOCAP and iTunes have generated hype about the potential of digital media sales, policymakers have increasingly been asked to regulate this emerging marketplace and the copyright, intellectual property, and technological questions it raises. The new paper, Content and Control: Assessing the Impact of Policy Choices on Potential Online Business Models in the Music and Film Industries, offers a guide to policymakers facing these questions: it assesses the impact of different governmental decisions on emerging business models. As the authors conclude, "government intervention is currently premature because it is unlikely to strike an appropriate balance between achieving industry goals while supporting other social values, such as consumer rights, the diversity of available content, and technological innovation." 1/7/05 http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/media/content_and_control
IBM announced that it is making 500 of its software patents freely available to anyone working on open-source projects, like the popular Linux operating system, on which programmers collaborate and share code...IBM executives say the company's new approach to intellectual property represents more than a rethinking of where the company's self-interest lies. In recent speeches, for example, Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM's chief executive, has emphasized the need for more open technology standards and collaboration as a way to stimulate economic growth and job creation." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/technology/11soft.html?oref=login
BLACKWELL’S TO DISTRIBUTE eBRARY PRODUCTS GLOBALLY
ebrary®, (www.ebrary.com), a leading information services and technology provider, today announced a strategic partnership with Blackwell's Book Services (www.blackwell.com) that will make ebrary products more accessible to domestic and foreign library markets. In addition to an existing partnership that provides previews of ebook titles via its Collection Manager system, Blackwell's will now resell ebrary's Dynamic Content Platform (DCP) (TM) to libraries in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. ebrary's DCP combines a growing selection of more than 60,000 full-text books and other authoritative content from leading publishers with patent-pending software for efficient online viewing and researching. Yahoo! Finance 1/10/05 http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050110/105407_1.html
INTEGRATING INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY PDF’S WITH OTHER COLLECTIONS
Paula J. Hane, ebrary Announces New Technology, Custom Collections, and Partnerships, Information Today, January 10, 2005. Excerpt: 'ebrary has just announced new server-based technology, code-named Isaac. This technology lets libraries create and share remote collections of PDF content and create virtual portals that seamlessly integrate PDF documents from any remote collection, their institutional repository or content management system, as well as existing subscription databases. Several academic institutions are currently beta testing Isaac, which is scheduled for availability in 3Q 2005.' Open Access News 1/11/05 http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb050110-1.shtml
PLoS TO LAUNCH NEW JOURNALS
The Public Library of Science, a pioneering U.S. non-profit publisher of open access journals, will launch three new journals this year. Part of an ambitious plan to transform scientific publishing, PLoS launched PLoS Biology in 2003 and PLoS Medicine in 2004, both with the support of the Gordon and Bettie Moore Foundation. Next up are PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics, and PLoS Pathogens. Costs are covered by author fees, currently $1500. PLoS launched its publishing efforts after a 2000 campaign garnered the signatures of over 30,000 scientists worldwide demanding unfettered access to scientific research. PLoS is partnering with the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) to publish PLoS Computational Biology. The journal, now accepting submissions, is scheduled to launch in June 2005. PLoS Genetics, also now accepting submissions, will launch in July 2005. PLoS Pathogens will begin accepting submissions in March 2005 and begin publishing in autumn of 2005. Although it remains unclear whether PLoS publishing efforts are proving a sustainable business, the expansion of the program suggests that there is indeed demand. "We believe that scientific publishing should be funded upfront by the organizations that sponsor research, rather than at the back end through ever increasing subscription rates," asserted PLoS co-founder Harold Varmus. Meanwhile, PLoS officials said they were actively seeking "additional partnerships and collaborations." Library Journal 1/11/05
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA493461?display=breakingNews
CORNELL
TASK FORCE: OPEN ACCESS COSTLY
A task force convened by the Cornell University Libraries (CUL) has delivered to its administration a sober assessment of author-pays open access (OA) publishing. Given the number of articles published by Cornell faculty members, the library system could "see its expenditures rise significantly if the library used its current subscription funds to pay for author fees." Instead, the task force predicts both subscriptions and open access publishing will coexist for the foreseeable future, particularly when subscriptions are "administered by scholarly societies, university presses, and academic libraries." The task force was convened by associate university librarian Ross Atkinson and led by John Saylor, director of the Engineering and Computer Science Library. The task force, which plumbed a wide array of sources, met weekly from January through June 2004 and delivered its report and recommendations in October. While far from a ringing endorsement, the report is also not bad news for OA supporters. It acknowledges the potential of open access to "democratize" access to information. Further, the report may help shift the debate to more practical issues. "Open access should not be regarded as an ultimate solution to the science serials crisis," the task force report stated, "but it can no doubt offer a pragmatic solution in specific cases." The task force acknowledged, however, that the scholarly publishing enterprise is simply too complex for a "blanket approach" to publishing issues. The "pragmatic approach" is to continue Cornell's current "flexible, experimental" course of action. Library Journal 1/10/05 http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA493464?display=breakingNews
BRITS SUPPORT 5 OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS
In a relatively modest move that is a likely sign of things to come, a British government-funded organization announced it will support the transition of five scholarly journals to an "author-pays" open access model. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) will pay the costs of UK authors submitting articles to the journals. We noted in our annual year-end Outlook 2005 Briefing that we expect to see alliances between research-funding organizations and scholarly societies that publish journals. This example involves five leading journals in physics and biosciences, so it is worth following as a harbinger of open access models to come. Meanwhile, the Public Library of Science (PLoS) announced yesterday that it will launch three new open-access journals on Computational Biology, Genetics, and Pathogens, in 2005. Outsell Now 1/7/05 http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=598193
NEW SITE FOR U.S. CIVIL WAR MAPS
Civil War Maps brings together materials from three premier collections: the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia. Among the reconnaissance, sketch, and theater-of-war maps are the detailed battle maps made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss for Generals Lee and Jackson, General Sherman's Southern military campaigns, and maps taken from diaries, scrapbooks, and manuscripts—all available for the first time in one place. Peter Scott’s Library Blog 1/11/05 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/civil_war_maps/
WIKIPEDIA FACES GROWING PAINS
As the member-created free informational site continues to expand, more people treat it like a traditional encyclopedia. But academics caution that many of its entries receive little scrutiny. By Daniel Terdiman. Wired.com 1/10/05 http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66210,00.html
COPYRIGHT REFORM VITAL TO SPREAD OF CULTURE AND INFORMATION
Larry Lessig’s latest work focuses on an aspect of Google’s mass digitization project: Last month, Google announced a partnership with major research libraries to scan 20 million books for inclusion in Google's search database. For those works in the public domain, the full text will be available. For those works still possibly under copyright, only snippets will be seen. The potential of this project is only beginning to be understood—it is likely to bring about the most dramatic changes in the nature of research and the spread of culture since the birth of Google itself. But the excitement around Google's extraordinary plan has obscured a dirty little secret: It is not at all clear that Google and these libraries have the legal right to do what is proposed. For work in the public domain, the right is clear enough. But for work not in the public domain, Google's right to scan—to copy—whole texts to index is uncertain at best, even if it ultimately makes only snippets available. When permission has been given by the copyright holder, again there's no problem. But when permission has not been secured, the law is essentially uncertain. If lawsuits were filed, and if Google and its partner libraries were found to have violated the law, their legal exposure could reach into the billions. Google, to its credit, has decided to accept these risks. It can afford to fight the lawsuits, and the benefit to society and Google from such access apparently outweighs its potential costs. LA Times 1/12/04 http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-lessig12jan12,1,1292618.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
DOMESDAY HIGHLIGHTS CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL PRESERVATION
Since its launch just three years ago, the U.K.'s Digital Preservation Coalition has grown from 19 to 26 members, and has found the need for its role growing as well. Digitally created data is multiplying at a dizzying rate, yet far less attention has been paid to how that data can best be managed and preserved for the future. One project in particular illustrates the challenges of digital preservation. The BBC Domesday project was an ambitious initiative conducted in the 1980s intended to create a modern-day equivalent of the wealth of information available from the 11th-century Domesday Book. Ironically, whereas the original Domesday book still survives after 900 years, the modern equivalent was nearly lost after less than two decades, saved only by the intervention of a highly skilled team. It's not enough to think about how to recover data down the line -- it's critical to plan for the ongoing management and preservation of data from the get-go, preferably at its creation. (CILIP Dec 2004) ShelfLife, No. 189 (January 13, 2005) http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/updatemagazine/archive/archive2004/december/jones.htm
GPO SEEKS BURIED DOCUMENTS
The Government Printing Office (GPO) is soliciting proposals for IT products and services that it could use to locate, harvest and review documents from federal Web sites. Federal agencies increasingly are publishing information in electronic format only, and failure to inform GPO of publications that should be included in the federal depository library and cataloging programs is a chronic problem. GPO says that Web crawler and data mining technologies could help it identify these documents and the agency plans to launch a pilot with the Environmental Protection Agency to test Web crawling technologies. GPO expects to award $75,000 in a firm-fixed-price contract and anticipates the project will be completed six months from the award date. Responses are due Jan. 31. (Government Computer News 3 Jan 2005) ShelfLife, No. 189 (January 13, 2005) http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/31439-1.html
GPO VISION FOR 21ST CENTURY: A DIGITAL INFORMATION FACTORY
The Government Printing Office (GPO) has released a plan to transform itself into a "digital information factory" staffed by those with a whole new set of skills and tools. "A Strategic Vision for the 21st Century" (www.gpo.gov/congressional/index.html) outlines the future of the GPO as moving beyond the manufacturing/printing mode and acknowledging the new digital reality. "[In November 2004] 50 percent of all government documents were born digital and will never be printed by the government. But the GPO is still required by law to gather and catalog these electronic documents, to distribute them electronically, and to ensure their perpetual availability to the public," said Bruce James, public printer of the United States. GPO goals include "a flexible digital information content system for federal documents, offering a single authoritative resource for digital authentication." It also must build and equip facilities and train employees to provide state-of-the-art digital products and services. GPO, which manages the Federal Depository Library Program, will offer more flexible services to partners, including improved search tools and training. It also is committed to digitizing and presenting online all known federal documents, beginning with the Federalist Papers, and offering on-demand print technology to all. GPO also plans to use the proceeds from the private redevelopment of its obsolete physical plant to cover the cost of its new facilities and services. It will be seeking Congressional approval in FY05 to repurpose $20 million from previously appropriated funds to partially pay the one-time costs associated with the development of a new integrated digital content management system to be implemented over three years at a cost of $29 million. This system will incorporate the digital files of all Congressional documents produced through the GPO. The GPO also will seek a one-time FY06 appropriation of $5 million to retrain GPO workers in new digital skills. Meanwhile, GPO will continue to manage the content creation of the official journals of government, such as Congressional Record and Federal Register. The majority of the federal government's printing requirements, however, now are purchased in the private sector through a competitive bidding process. "We see the government's printing requirements changing dramatically in the next few years," explained Jim Bradley, GPO's managing director of customer services. "Not only will fewer titles be printed, but the quantities will drop as more government information is accessed through the Internet. Within a few years we will no longer order copies for warehouse storage and later fulfillment, instead relying on demand printing, where our vendors print one copy for each individual customer's order." Library Journal Academic News Wire: January 13, 2005
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT AGENDA DESERVES SUPPORT
Michael Geist’s weekly Toronto Star ”Law Bytes” column focuses on the WIPO Development Agenda. It notes that years of international agreements have failed to balance the interests of the developed and developing worlds and have predictably led to annual outflows of billions of dollars from the developing world to the developed world. The introduction of a development agenda represents the best opportunity to reshape global intellectual property law in a manner that benefits both the developed and developing world. BNA's Internet Law News (ILN) – 1/17/05 http://geistdevelopingip.notlong.com
HOW COPYRIGHT COULD BE KILLING CULTURE
The Globe and Mail ran a feature on the negative impact of copyright on cultural development. The article focuses on the challenge of making documentary films in light of the need for expensive permissions, noting that the Eyes on the Prize, the documentary on the civil rights movement will not be shown on Martin Luther King Day due to the expiration of permissions. BNA's Internet Law News (ILN) - 1/17/05 http://copyrightculture.notlong.com
IS THE OPEN ACCESS MOVEMENT LIVING UP TO ITS POTENTIAL?
John Blossom, Opportunity Knocks: Is the Open Access Movement Meeting its Full Potential? Commentary (the Shore Communications blog), January 17, 2005. Excerpt: 'As the enthusiasm for open access publishing in academic and scientific circles is starting to reach a fever pitch, publishers such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS) are adding new journals and getting more support to subsidize authors' contributions. This heady atmosphere is not without clouds on the horizon, though. The headlong rush to embrace open access publishing as a business model has created an anti-profit zeal that may limit its commercial success - a limitation that will give commercial publishers plenty of time to think about how they want to adopt their own business models to this new environment. Nobody has the corner on the market for publishing wisdom these days. Thank goodness....The good news for schools and professionals is that the broadening supply of free-to-users content makes for wide access to leading-edge ideas, increasing knowledge and accelerating discoveries. As noted in Janice McCallum's earlier news analysis on open access, exposing journals content to a wider array of search technologies allows it to flow into many more useful contexts, creating many new opportunities for creating content value. More problematic, though, are the business models that are - and aren't - being developed to underpin the open access movement....Established publishers aren't going away and are still well- funded....Commercial journals can go open, too.' (Comment by Peter Suber: OA opposes price barriers to access, not profit. BioMed Central, for example, is a for-profit OA publisher. OA opposes priced journal literature, not the publishers that provide priced journal literature. If they adopt OA models, they will be welcomed as allies. OA does not require publisher setbacks.) Comment from Peter Suber. Open Access News 1/18/05 http://www.shore.com/commentary/newsanal/items/2005/20050117models.html
KOREA LAUNCHES NEW COPYRIGHT LAW
Korea's Culture and Tourism Ministry has launched a new copyright law that gives singers, instrumentalists, and record producers greater authority over their work. Users who upload or download music files via the Internet without the consent of the copyright holders will be found in violation of this law and be required to pay a fine of W50 million, roughly US$48,000, or serve a maximum prison term of up to five years. BNA's Internet Law News (ILN) - 1/19/05 http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200501/200501180011.html
SOUTH ASIAN NATIONS PURSUE DIGITAL LIBRARY
A group of South Asian countries is banding together to develop a composite digital library comprising individual Traditional Knowledge Digital Libraries (TKDL) from each country. Included in the TKDLs will be information on traditional medicine, foodstuffs, architecture and culture. The initiative will enable participants to better protect their countries' intellectual property by proving prior existence of knowledge. For instance, India's TKDL successfully rebutted claims by a U.S. company for a patent on using turmeric to heal wounds, documenting that the spice's healing property had been well known in India for many generations. Documenting traditional knowledge has become important as most of it is in the public domain and is easy to misappropriate. Because more than 80% of South Asia's 1.4 billion population relies on traditional medicine such as herbal remedies, its knowledge in that area is well developed and affects biotechnology, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and health care. The documentation of traditional knowledge has sparked the interest of WIPO, which is working toward a new legal instrument to recognize and protect such knowledge, using a combination of existing intellectual property laws and generic laws unique to individual circumstances of the countries developing them. (SciDev.net 10 Jan 2005) ShelfLife, No. 190 (January 20, 2005) http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=1840&language=1
BERKMAN CENTER RELEASES REPORTS ON DIGITAL MEDIA
Harvard's Berkman Center has released a pair of reports together with GartnerG2 on the state of digital media. The reports include analysis of legal cases and a supplement on international developments. BNA's Internet Law News (ILN) - 1/20/05 Reports at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/media/files/wp2005.pdf
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/media/files/wpsupplement2005.pdf
PROJECT TORCHED: MELLON SHELVES PROJECT TO DIGITIZE MONOGRAPHS
Google has claimed a victim: the Oxford University Press-led Project TORCH (The Online Resource Center in the Humanities). The collaborative project among libraries, university presses, students, and scholars to make collections of backlist scholarly monographs in the humanities available in electronic format has been discontinued. Citing the recent Google plan to digitize books from libraries, OUP and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation "agreed" to shelve the project, though it was unclear whether OUP or Mellon raised the subject of closing down TORCH. The Mellon Foundation, a major supporter of scholarly communication initiatives, funded the first phase of the project in 2003, which produced a feasibility study, and also supported the most recent phase, although the amount was undisclosed. The effort was headed at OUP by publishing veteran Philip Friedman, who was working with advisory boards made up of university press personnel, librarians, and scholars. OUP officials carefully added that Friedman had "coincidentally" since left Oxford for another position. Friedman this week assumed new duties at HarperCollins as VP and publisher, Collins Reference, in the new Collins division. TORCH was still in its early stages and had been working toward a possible launch in 2006. That news had librarians wondering how Google's plans might influence the behavior of funding agencies. One librarian, who asked not to be named, suggested that it was not unreasonable that funders would choose not to invest in backlist digitization projects they feel will be overtaken by Google, but added that it also may be shortsighted to abandon such projects in hopes a commercial entity would pick up the effort. Another librarian questioned Google's long-term commitment and stability, as well as its access model and its indexing issues, notably whether certain works would be buried in a deluge of digitized materials. Don Waters, Mellon's program officer for scholarly communication, declined to speak with the LJ Academic Newswire about TORCH and referred all questions to OUP officials. Library Journal Academic News Wire: January 20, 2005
The scholarly communications are also on line at TUhttp://www.library.uiuc.edu/administration/scholarly_communication/UT