C&I Feedback Invitation 3: Library Access to Scholarship

See this post for background on this series of Cites & Insights feedback invitations.

3. Library Access to Scholarship

This one’s tough. It’s not that coverage has stopped by any means. Sections appeared in May and December, only half as often as in 2005 and 2004, but there was also a Perspective: Thinking about Libraries and Access in June and a two-part Perspective on early OA journals in October.

On one hand, several blogs provide exceptionally thorough coverage of open access issues; the SPARC Open Access Newsletter also provides Peter Suber’s thoughtful commentaries. I won’t cover certain aspects of OA, and I’ve never quite succeeded in expanding “Library Access to Scholarship” substantially beyond OA-related issues.

On the other–well, I’m pretty sure all three Perspectives this year were valuable, and I got some positive feedback on the two sections as well. I’m not suggesting the possibility of dropping access-related coverage altogether; Perspectives only happen when the mood strikes, but the topic will stay in the mix.
Maybe there’s enough of a need for OA independents and heretics (T. Scott’s word) so that I should keep this, at least at a simmer.

What do you think?

  1. Dump the Library Access to Scholarship sections; it’s all done better elsewhere.
  2. Keep them around, but focus on new perspectives and synthes.s
  3. Expand them (unlikely): People may be getting access-related stuff here who don’t (and won’t) read OAN and the other sources.

#3 strikes me as improbable on the face of it, but…

Comments welcome here, or send email to waltcrawford at gmail.com.

Don’t expect quick responses in either case; this post is postdated, and I’m actually on my way to or in New York at the moment, traveling without technology.

Creative Commons License
This work by Walt Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 8:08 pm and is filed under Cites & Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “C&I Feedback Invitation 3: Library Access to Scholarship”

  1. WoW!ter says:
    December 1, 2006 at 3:19 am

    Keep it please at this years pace. Your last (dec. issue) proved for me a valuable review which put the matter in perspective. I do follow the blogs you mention, but these cover the day to day bussines. Although Peter writes an excellent monthly (?) overview. A perspective with a longer time frame deserves it own place.

  2. Steve Lawson says:
    December 1, 2006 at 2:56 pm

    Please keep. This is an area I like to keep tabs on, but I don’t follow the other sites that cover OA, so your occasional roundups are very useful to me.

  3. Fabrizio TInti says:
    December 2, 2006 at 3:39 am

    Please keep the good work. OA needs support. The more we are…