[Asis-l] Access by non-affiliates to licensed content

Tue Jun 8 09:54:08 EDT 2010

Hello, everyone,

You may remember that, some weeks ago, I posed
a query to this list about the availability of research
publications or other reports dealing with the extent
to which there has been shown to be, among a) the
general public and /or b) small enterprises and e.g.
independent consultants, a demand for, or serious
interest in gaining, structural remote access to
digital scientific/scholarly content that is typically,
because of license stipulations, only available to
persons formally affiliated with institutions such as
universities which ( i.e., in many cases, whose
libraries ) have negotiated and paid for the licensed
access.

In the period that followed, I received several
indications of interest in this subject from list
participants, with the request that I make available
to the list any useful responses that I may have
received. In fact, my query did not yield as much
as I had hoped -- though there were a few useful
suggestions. In the intervening period, I have, as
time permitted, myself gone in search of relevant
literature. Anyway, because of the above-mentioned
request from others on the list, I herewith present a
summary indication of what I have found to be
available.

Alas -- it doesn't turn out to be all that much.
( Sufficient justification, it would seem, for
suggesting initiation of some research projects
on this topic. )

The relevant studies that have been done, and the
reports and publications that exist, tend to lie in
the medical and health care or health services areas.
Imust confess that this was hardly a surprise.

Surely I have missed some things -- perhaps even
important things. Further suggestions remain
welcome.

Deserving of first mention is, perhaps, the report :

_Scientific publications: free for all? : Tenth report of Session 2003-04 : Volume I: Report_ / House of Commons, Science and Technology Committee. - London : The Stationery Office Limited, 20 July 2004. - 114 p. - Available at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399.pdf
or via
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39902.htm

As a result of the release of this report, there
appeared a short article :

Carl Clayton, "STM research literature and the general public", _Library + information update_ 3.10 (October 2004), p.15

Certainly also important is :

_Access by UK small and medium-sized enterprises to professional and academic information : research report_ / Publishing Research Consortium. - Bristol : Mark Ware Consulting Ltd., August 2009. - iii, 49 p. - Available at
http://www.publishingresearch.net/documents/SMEAccessResearchReport.pdf

with its accompanying report :

_Access to professional and academic information in the UK : A survey of SMEs, large companies, universities & colleges,hospitals & medical schools, governmental & research institutes : Companion report_ . - 51 p. - Available at
http://www.publishingresearch.net/documents/SMEAccessCompanionReport.pdf

Also quite pertinent are two very recent articles by
Ken Masters :

"Opening the non-open access medical journals: Internet-based sharing of journal articles on a medical web site", _The Internet journal of medical informatics_ 5.1 (2009). - Available at http://tinyurl.com/kmoajournals
and
"Opening the closed-access medical journals: Internet-based sharing of institutions’ access codes on a medical web-site", _The Internet journal of medical informatics_ 5.2 (2010). - Available at http://tinyurl.com/kmaccesscodes

Other significant publications dealing with the
question are :

Alesia Zuccala, "Open access and civic scientific information literacy", _Information research_ 15.1 (2010). - Available at
http://informationr.net/ir/15-1/paper426.html

Alesia  Zuccala, "Layperson and open access", in _Annual review of information science and technology_ 43 (2009), p.359-396

Joseph Esposito, "A Library Card Under the Christmas Tree", blog contribution dated Dec. 1 2009, on "The scholarly kitchen" (Society for Scholarly Publishing), with twelve responses. - Available at
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/12/01/a-library-card-under-the-christmas-tree/

_The access principle_ / by John Willinsky. - Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2006. -
ISBN 0-262-23242-1.
Especially chapter 8 ("Public"), p.111-126

and two of his earlier books :

_If only we knew : increasing the public value of social-science research_. - New York [etc.] : Routledge, 2000. - ISBN 0-415-92651-3 ; 0-415-92652-1 pbk.
and
_Technologies of knowing : a proposal for the human sciences_. - Boston, Mass. : Beacon Press, 1999. - ISBN 0-8070-6106-9 ; 0-8070-6107-7 pbk

and his article :

"Why open access to research and scholarship?", _Journal of neuroscience_ 26.36 (2006), p.9078-9079

as well as :

Ray English & Molly Raphael, "The next big library legislative issue", _American libraries_ 37.8 (September 2006), p.30-32

Gregor Horstkemper, "Zugang zu geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Fachinformationen leicht gemacht: Nationallizenzen und pay-per-use-Modelle – oeffentliche Bibliotheken als wichtige Anlaufstationen", _BuB : Forum Bibliothek und Information_ 58.7/8 (Juli/August 2006), p.553-558

Mogens Damm, "Adgang for alle: en virkelighed med begraensninger" ["Access for all: a reality with limitations"], _Bibliotekspressen_, 16. januar 2003, p.10-13

M. Frank, "Access to the scientific literature - a difficult balance", _New England journal of medicine_ 354.15 (2006), p.1552-1555

Ellen Euler, "Licences for open access to scientific publications – a German perspective", _INDICARE monitor_ 2.4 (2005). - Available at
http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=117

Giovanni A. Fava & Jenny Guidi, "Information overload, the patient and the clinician", _Psychotherapy and psychosomatics_ 76.1 (2007), p.1-3

Sue M. Hollander, "Providing health information to the general public: a survey of current practices in academic health sciences libraries", _Bulletin of the Medical Library Association_ 88.1 (2000), p.62–69. - Available at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC35199/pdf/i0025-7338-088-01-0062.pdf

Also of potential interest :

A special issue of _Arbor : ciencia, pensamiento y cultura_ -- volume 185 (2009), issue 737:  "Ciencia y cultura en la Red". - Available at
http://arbor.revistas.csic.es/index.php/arbor/issue/view/22/showToc
Especially the contributions of Martin, Cope & Kalantzis, Feltrero

Papers from BOBCATSSS 2010, Parma, Italy, 25-27 January 2010, under the theme "Bridging the digital divide: libraries providing access for all?"
Especially the contributions of Sieverts et al. (http://dspace-unipr.cilea.it/bitstream/1889/1249/2/Panorama-Parma.pdf), Tveter & Sveum (http://dspace-unipr.cilea.it/bitstream/1889/1269/2/Tveter_Sveum.pdf), Glimstedt (http://dspace-unipr.cilea.it/bitstream/1889/1213/1/Glimstedt.pdf), Ashcroft (http://dspace-unipr.cilea.it/bitstream/1889/1248/2/bobcatsss%202010%20Ashcroft.pdf), Cassella (http://dspace-unipr.cilea.it/bitstream/1889/1244/1/Maria%20Cassella.pdf)

Urszula Knop, "Zmiany w udostepnianiu zbiorow w bibliotekach naukowych" ["Changes in accessing collections at university libraries"], _Bibliotekarz_, 2008, nr.2, p.10-14

Frank Parry, "The access principle: The case for open access to research and scholarship", _Online information review_ 30.5 (2006), p.600-601

Matthew J. Cockerill & Vitek Tracz, "Open access and the future of the scientific research article", _Journal of neuroscience_ 26.40 (2006), p.10079-10081

Michael J. Kurtz, "Restrictive access policies cut readership of electronic research journal articles by a factor of two", conference presentation for "National Policies on Open Access (OA) Provision for University Research Output: an International meeting", February 19 2004 at New College, Southampton University. - Available at
http://opcit.eprints.org/feb19oa/kurtz.pdf

I. H. Witten, "Digital libraries: developing countries, universal access, and information for all", in _Digital libraries: International collaboration and cross-fertilization. 7th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries, ICADL 2004. Proceedings. Shanghai, China. 13-17 Dec. 2004_ (Lecture notes in computer science ; 3334) (Berlin : Springer, 2004), p.35-44

T. Scott Plutchak, "Embracing open access", _Journal of the Medical Library Association _ 92.1 (2004), p.1-3. - Available at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC314095/pdf/i0025-7338-092-01-0001.pdf

P.S. Tamber et al., "Open access to peer-reviewed research: Making it happen", _The lancet_ 362.9395 (2003), p.1575-1577

Alex Byrne, "Digital libraries: barriers or gateways to scholarly information?", _Electronic library_ 21.5 (2003), p.414-421

Esko Hakli, "Public libraries and the National Electronic Library", _Scandinavian public library quarterly_ 32.1 (1999), p.7-8

( Some special characters have been omitted above, for
technical discussion list software reasons. )

And finally, it is certainly appropriate to allude here
( as did two persons who responded off-list to my
request ) to the online commercial service DeepDyve :
"The largest online rental service for scientific,
technical and medical research -- For as low as $0.99".
DeepDyve ( formerly Infovell ) itself describes its
service as follows : 

"Search across our vast repository of 30 million articles and preview
any article for free. If you would like to see the rest of the article, you
can rent the article and read its full-text for up to 24 hours for as little
as $0.99. Rented articles can only be viewed at DeepDyve and cannot
be downloaded, printed or shared.

The DeepDyve Basic account doesn’t cost anything to join and comes
with 3 free rentals to help get you started. Once those 3 free rentals
have been used, additional rentals will cost as low as $0.99. DeepDyve
also offers the Silver and Gold monthly plans. These plans provide even
greater flexibility and more peace of mind by allowing more rentals per
month, for longer periods of time."

Its site can be found under :  http://www.deepdyve.com/.
DeepDyve is still in beta. There's a publishers' list beginning
at http://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers, and a
journals list beginning at http://www.deepdyve.com/browse/journals.

You can find some ( brief ) evaluations of, or reports on,
this service in for example :

_Advanced technology libraries_ 38.12 (Dec. 2009), p.3

_Against the grain_ 21.6 (Dec. 2009 / Jan. 2010), p.76-77

_Online_ 34.1 (Jan./Febr. 2010), p.8

_Information today_ 27.4 (Apr. 2010), p.38, 42

I'll just leave it at that, hoping that this posting will
have been of some use to others here on the list.

And my thanks -- also on-list -- to those who
responded.

- Laval Hunsucker
  Breukelen, Nederland