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This is a weekly series highlighting Open Access Button users from around the world, discussing their work, and sharing their stories. If you would like to participate, please email oabutton@gmail.com Professor Ernesto Priego, part of the team at City University London's Library and Information Science Course, was thankfully able to chat with us after a...

This title is SO meaningful. People always ask what librarians do in this digital-Google-era. Librarians enable access, that is what they do! And in many ways. In educating people on open access, how to search databases, by searching databases for patrons, by searching the full-text, by contacting other libraries to get interlibrary loans, etc. etc. etc. The role of the librarian today is still very important and relevant. Technologies did not diminish the role of the librarians, technologies pushed it to very advanced, specialized and precise roles.

There's a lot to digest here, particularly if you want to read the whole report as well as the edited summary. I particularly liked the responses from JP Rangaswami: "The quality of real-time information that becomes available will take the guesswork out of much of capacity planning and decision-making......The net effect will be to reduce waste everywhere: in physical flows and logistics, in the movement of people and goods; in logical flows and logistics, in the movement of ideas and information; decisions will be made faster and better, based on more accurate information; prior errors in assumption and planning will be winkled out more effectively." And from Howard Rheingold: "We will live in a world where many things won't work, and nobody will know how to fix them." On a personal note, I can see there might be benefits with the IoT, particularly the use of sensors and actuators for monitoring and improving health, but will it put the final nail in 'privacy' and enable marketers to push their products and control my thoughts 24 x 7 through the pervasive use of wearable devices and biological interfaces with technology? Reading time: 60 mins

A photo-sharing app enabling healthcare professionals to view patients' photos is to be launched across western Europe.

Even though this app is surrounded by controversy I see it as the natural next step in healthcare. There is no reason why doctors should not be able to freely exchange information as long as the identity of the patients remains unknown.

This blog about Open Data Developments in Asia analyses the recent state of Open Data adopted in Asia and highlights some of the 11 Asian countries participants that attended the Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva in 2012. Of the 11 countries that attended the conference, the author of the post focuses on the East Asian and Pacific countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and discusses their state and role in Openness. The author does a good job at providing statistics of the different countries in terms of the Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index (KEI), which analyzes the economic rankings of countries. The author then compares economic rank to that of openness, stating that countries low on the economic rank contribute little to no open data within their own countries or externally to other countries. Next, the author talks about the overall internet penetration in Asia as being only 27.5 percent and in that statistic, there is still a wide gap between North and South East Asia in terms of internet use and information distribution and acquisition from citizens and others. Moreover, the author continues to compare how many social, economical, political and cultural influence information distribution, contribution and acquisition in Asia countries. Openness is growing in the more developed Asian countries, but openness is limited, or even nonexistent, in developing (authoritative) countries. After reading this article, I've had a greater understanding of the current state of Open Data in Asia an the influences that contribute to enabling Openness. What I expected from the blog post or something that would've made the post even better could be some examples or projects of Openness or Open Data in Asia.

Publicado el 7/5/2012 This is a brief overview of several Open Peer Review Models, including ETAI, Nature, ACP, PLoS One and EJCBS. It is recorded based on a Prezi Presentation first developed for Open Access Week 2011 at UBC.

I found this presentation, in particular the visual representations, to be very useful in understanding just how diverse open peer review models can be. Several things stuck out to me throughout the presentation. First, I was surprised that many of the open peer review models either maintained anonymity of the reviewers or self-identification was optional. For example, PLOSone and the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journals did not require self-identification. This raises a tension for me in that it does enable more people to participate in the publishing/review process, but it still inherently indicates context does not matter, which is something I disagree with. That is, if, for example, a paper is on student-faculty partnerships or feminism, it seems to me that crucial insights pertain to the particularities of the people reviewing an article. The other aspect that stuck out to me was how crucial it is for a journal to be intentional about implementing, integrating, and valuing an open peer review process. The Nature experiment is a good example of this. While I am sure they spent a great deal of time figuring out how to construct and enable an open peer review process, it was not necessarily emphasized as important by the journal nor well integrated into people's current practice. In contrast, the ETAI did this by permanently archiving the peer comments rather than deleting them unannounced, and editors also sent notifications to people that articles were ready rather than assuming people would seek out articles themselves.

"EIFL enables access to knowledge through libraries in developing and transition countries to contribute to sustainable economic and social development."

EIFL-OA - free unrestricted access to peer-reviewed research literature

This blog is especially great because it talks about the motivation and mindset behind adopting an ope approach. Open is not simply about making or using open resources but open as a 'way of being'

Looks interesting: LibraryBox is an open source, portable digital file distribution tool based on inexpensive hardware that enables delivery of educational, healthcare, and other vital information to individuals off the grid.

"HINARI Programme set up by WHO together with major publishers, enables low- and middle- income countries to gain access to one of the world's largest collections of biomedical and health literature. Up to 13,000 journals (in 30 different languages), up to 29,000 e-books, up to 70 other information resources are now available to health institutions in more than 100 countries, areas and territories benefiting many thousands of health workers and researchers, and in turn, contributing to improve world health."

This recently published book, by a University of British Columbia journalism professor named Alfred Hermida, questions how the new culture of sharing and collaboration-and the pace of change that sharing enables-changes our lives. It's particularly interesting for us because it doesn't back away from the challenges that open access poses for us: how does being both creator and consumer change us? How does blurring the lines between these two change the way we think about the balance between copyright and the public good? Hermida doesn't tackle these last questions directly, but he provides a useful lens for thinking about our changing roles and how open knowledge and sharing need to reflect that. Considering the book's focus on sharing, it's somewhat ironic that it's not open access, but I highly recommend checking it out. It's received significant attention in the Canadian press and is exactly the kind of mainstream attention that can get conversations about open access started.

Not everything can be shared. Aside from the 14 reasons what makes people share knowledge is because they are trust each one with the knowledge that they will share will be beneficial to the receiver of the knowledge or learning. Knowledge is power when shared.

Most of materials available in libraries are copyrighted. On the other hand, it requires copying and digitizing these materials to enable research,...

Una de las características fundamentales, que ha permitido el crecimiento exponencial de la red mundial de información, es que ha sido una plataforma abierta, lo que ha dependido de tres factores esenciales: "1) unlimited links from any part of the Web to any other; 2) open technical standards as the basis for continued growth of innovation applications, and; 3) separation of network layers, enabling independent innovation for network transport, routing and information applications" (Berners Lee, 2007).

Vernacular resistance to data collection and analysis: A political theory of obfuscation Computer-enabled data collection, aggregation, and mining dramatically change the nature of contemporary surveillance. Refusal is not a practical option, as data collection is an inherent condition of many essential societal transactions.

"Foldit is a revolutionary new computer game enabling you to contribute to important scientific research. This page describes the science behind Foldit and how your playing can help."

The report describes potential benefits of citizen science for both science and society, especially given the advent of new mobile technologies that enable remote participation. Who really benefits the most from these developments: the amateurs or the professionals?

We're enabling anyone to explore, visualize and track government spending. It's our money! By understanding how governments spend money in our name can we have a say in how that money will affect our own lives. The journey starts here.

As a scholarly publisher, we enable scholarly journals to take full advantage of the opportunities unlocked by electronic publishing and open access. Through our comprehensive and modern publication practices and technological expertise we realise each journal's full potential, and improve their scientific impact whilst upholding international publishing standards and ethical practices.

Hi there, I have just find this excelente video about the future os property rihgts and think that may be interesting for you all. "Property Rights Development: Implications for Sustainability | PRESENTER: Brian Kelly, Graduate Student Fellow, MS Candidate in Community Development and Applied Economics | 4/20/12 Modern property rights assignments and regimes are ill-equipped to adapt to increased ecological scarcity, resulting in economically-inefficient outcomes and a systemic inability to enable the development of a green economy. This presentation will discuss how property rights emerge, the viability of rights for future generations, and the how the existence of environmental externalities necessitates the inevitable emergence of common property rights regimes, grounded in the empirical example of Vermont's groundwater". Regards Julia Echeverría