Library Copyright Alliance applauds Unlocking Technology Act and comments on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP); Digitized 17th-Century maps from Ireland now online; PBS MediaShift starts publishing ebooks; IOP Publishing and NIMS agree to continue publishing STAM; California Open Access Bill clears committee; Cochrane’s has a new look; and dtSearch now covers more data types.
Library Copyright Alliance Applauds Introduction of the Unlocking Technology Act
The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) applauds the introduction in the US House of Representatives on May 9, 2013, of H.R. 1892, the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Jared Polis (D-CO). The bill guarantees that legitimate uses of digital works and technologies will not run afoul of copyright law, even if they require breaking digital locks. Prompted by the recent uproar over cell phone unlocking, the bill recognizes that issue as a symptom of a much larger problem and would fix that problem permanently.
District Dispatch reports that “the Library Copyright Alliance has released these comments (pdf) regarding United States negotiating stance on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) questioning whether the United States should negotiate an intellectual property section in the trade agreement given the differences between EU and US copyright laws…”
New Online Collection of Digitized 17th-Century Maps From Ireland Goes Live
Citing numerous sources InfoDOCKET reports that “a new website, which brings a unique 17th-century map collection together for the first time in 300 years as a public online resource, is being launched in Trinity College Dublin …
The Down Survey website maps out for the first time in great detail the dramatic transfer in landownership from Catholics to Protestants. The resource will give a greater understanding of 17th-century Ireland…”
PaidContent reports that “PBS’s MediaShift is launching a line of ebooks, starting with titles on self-publishing and cord-cutting. Executive Mark Glaser says he plans to release 10 to 20 books this year, depending on how well the first titles do…”
KnowledgeSpeak reports that “IOP Publishing… has announced a new three year agreement with the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) for the continued publication of the open access title Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM)…”
Beginning July 2013 the journal will offer a gold open access option for the first time. This move will mean that authors publishing with STAM will be asked to pay an article publication charge when their paper is accepted for publication in the journal (which has been set at ¥135,000). NIMS will continue to subsidise publication of selected research.
California Open Access Bill Clears Committee
According to Library Journal, “a bill which would require California-funded research to be deposited in open access repositories passed the state’s Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee on May 1.
Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R-Palm Desert) introduced the bill, which was the brainchild of California Council on Science & Tech Fellow Annabelle Kleist, who works in Nestande’s office. Kleist said she contacted Heather Joseph, Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), who put her in contact with people who could help shape the proposal.
Information Today reports that “at this year’s Medical Libraries Association (MLA) annual conference,…several sessions centered on new and forthcoming developments with The Cochrane Collaboration… The Cochrane Library consists of databases that cover systematic reviews, abstracts of reviews of effects, a central register of controlled trials, a methodology register, health technology assessment, and economic evaluation. It can be searched as part of the Wiley Online Library and on EBSCOhost…”
Information Today also notes that “dtSearch Corp., a supplier of enterprise and developer text retrieval software along with document filters, announces Version 7.72 of its product line. The new version expands dtSearch’s proprietary document filters built into its text retrieval products. For customers in need of data parsing, conversion, and extraction only, the dtSearch Engine (with APIs in native 64-bit/32-bit, Win/Linux C++, Java, and .NET through current versions) also provides the document filters for separate OEM licensing…
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