Free and unrestricted access to research results and publications, known as open access (OA), is key to speeding up scientific discovery. There is also growing evidence that OA maximises the impact of research through better dissemination and uptake of research findings.

But how can we make this a truly global and sustainable endeavour? This was much discussed at the recent Berlin 9 Open Access conference in Washington DC.

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As of June 2, 2011, all PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press (NAP) will be downloadable free of charge to anyone. This includes current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports published by NAP.*

Free access to online content supports the mission of NAP—publisher for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council–to improve government decision making and public policy, increase public education and understanding, and promote the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in matters involving science, engineering, technology, and health.

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Wiley today announced the launch of Wiley Open Access, a new publishing program of open access journals.  The first journals will launch shortly, publishing primary peer-reviewed research in a range of broad-based subject disciplines in the life and biomedical sciences, including neuroscience, microbiology, ecology and evolution.

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Free culture leader and Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig was at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) yesterday to talk about access to scientific knowledge on the internet. In the symbolic place where the World Wide Web was invented and where scientists are now trying to unravel the creation of the universe, Lessig praised CERN’s open access initiative and in this temple of reasoning, said the copyright architecture was on the edge of absurdity.

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Biodiversity and climate change issues are coming together under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), according to a new working paper from the University of Edinburgh. The CBD is engaged in questions relating to climate change, it found. In particular, the CBD has progressively addressed legal and policy implications of the impacts on biodiversity of climate change, as well as mitigation and adaptation measures.

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Abstract: Ecology is a synthetic discipline benefiting from open access to data from the earth, life, and social sciences. Technological challenges exist, however, due to the dispersed and heterogeneous nature of these data. Standardization of methods and development of robust metadata can increase data access but are not sufficient. Reproducibility of analyses is also important, and executable workflows are addressing this issue by capturing data provenance. Sociological challenges, including inadequate rewards for sharing data, must also be resolved. The establishment of well-curated, federated data repositories will provide a means to preserve data while promoting attribution and acknowledgement of its use.

The copyright system is hopelessly unsuited to the twenty-first century and needs major reform, says Lawrence Lessig. Speaking in Geneva in early November ^[2], the American scholar called for the creation of a ‘blue sky’ commission, led by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), to consider a new international copyright architecture for the digital age. “If and only if WIPO leads in this debate will we have a chance” at fixing the copyright system, he told a WIPO conference on access to culture.

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Influential copyright scholar Larry Lessig yesterday issued a call for the World Intellectual Property Organization to lead an overhaul of the copyright system which he says does not and never will make sense in the digital environment.  A functioning copyright system must provide the incentives needed for creative professionals, but must also protect the freedoms necessary for scientific research and amateur creativity to flourish.

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  Since its creation in 1979 WCMC has produced well over 1500 books and reports. These include both published documents and ‘grey’ literature, commissioned reports and items in the public domain. UNEP-WCMC has selected 380 of the most important books and reports from this collection, and has worked with the Biodiversity Heritage Library to make these freely available online.

while a number of United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) publications are available in the Internet Archive site, the World Atlases are now available online, as outstanding copyright issues have been resolved.

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