[Air-L] FIRST OPEN ACCESS DAY TO BE HELD OCTOBER 14, 2008

[jeremy hunsinger]

[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
For immediate release
August 28, 2008

For more information, contact:
Jennifer McLennan
SPARC
(202) 296-2296
jennifer at arl.org

*FIRST OPEN ACCESS DAY TO BE HELD OCTOBER 14, 2008*

Washington, DC =96 August 28, 2008 =96 SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing  
and
Academic Resources Coalition), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and
Students for FreeCulture have jointly announced the first  
international Ope=
n
Access Day. Building on the worldwide momentum toward Open Access to
publicly funded research, Open Access Day will create a key  
opportunity for
the higher education community and the general public to understand more
clearly the opportunities of wider access and use of content.

Open Access Day will invite researchers, educators, librarians,  
students,
and the public to participate in live, worldwide broadcasts of events.  
In
North America, events will be held at 7:00 PM (Eastern) and 7:00 PM
(Pacific) and feature appearances from:

*Sir Richard Roberts, Ph.D., F.R.S.*
Joint winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1993 for
discovering split genes and RNA splicing, one of 26 Nobel Prize- 
winners to
sign the Open Letter to U.S. Congress in support of taxpayer access to
publicly funded research, and currently at New England Biolabs, USA.  
[7PM
Eastern]

*Philip E. Bourne, Ph.D. *
Philip E. Bourne is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Computational
Biology and the author of the popular PLoS Computational Biology Ten  
Simple
Rules Series. He is Professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and
Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego,  
Associat=
e
Director of the RCSB Protein Data Bank, Senior Advisor to the San Diego
Supercomputer Center, an Adjunct Professor at the Burnham Institute, and
Co-Founder of SciVee. [7PM Pacific]

Librarians and student organizers are invited to host meetings around  
the
broadcast. To see a list of participating campuses and to sign up,  
visit th=
e
Open Access Day Web site at http://www.openaccessday.org. Additional
international events will be announced shortly.

The event will also mark the launch of the new "Voices of Open Access  
Video
Series." Key members of the research community, including a teacher,
librarian, researcher, student, patient advocate, and a funder, will  
speak
on why they are committed to Open Access.

"The momentum behind Open Access to research has been accelerating for  
some
time now, even before the mandates at the U.S. National Institutes of  
Healt=
h
and Harvard University," said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of  
SPARC.
"Events beyond the U.S. especially underscore the higher education
community's commitment to having the access they need. Open Access Day  
will
provide a perfect way for folks to come together, consider, and  
celebrate
the ramifications of the global shift we're experiencing."

"Open Access Day is a great opportunity to inform everyone on campus  
about
the nature and importance of Open Access," added Nelson Pavlosky, Co- 
Founde=
r
of Students for FreeCulture. "It's really an issue that impacts  
everyone in
the university, whether they are professors who publish, students who
research, or librarians who purchase journal subscriptions. Students for
FreeCulture looks forward to working with SPARC and PLoS to inform our
peers, as well as faculty, staff and administration, about how Open  
Access
can help bring publishing into the 21st Century."

"Making full use of the Internet to share and reuse content without
restriction is pushing scientific communication into the future," said  
Pete=
r
Jerram, CEO of PLoS. "Open Access Day acknowledges the enormous progress
that's been made towards comprehensive access to research.  We are  
pleased
to be partnering with the community on this special day. We would ask  
our
supporters to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the commencement of our
publishing activities in October by participating."

Open Access Day was inspired by the National Day of Action on February  
15,
2007, led by Students for FreeCulture with support from the Alliance for
Taxpayer Access. This year, the same partners have joined forces with  
PLoS,
the Open Access scientific and medical Web publisher. Open Access- 
supportin=
g
organizations are also invited to take part. For details, contact the
organizers.

For details and to participate, visit http://www.openaccessday.org.

#

*SPARC*
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with  
SPARC
Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800
academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of
scholarly communication. SPARC's advocacy, educational and publisher
partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research.   
SPARC i=
s
a founder of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, representing taxpayers,
patients, physicians, researchers, and institutions that support open  
publi=
c
access to taxpayer-funded research. SPARC is on the Web at
http://www.arl.org/sparc.

*Students for Free Culture (SFC) *
Students for FreeCulture is a diverse, non-partisan group of students  
and
young people who are working to get their peers involved in the free  
cultur=
e
movement. Launched in April 2004 at Swarthmore College, it has helped
establish student groups at colleges and universities across the United
States. Today, chapters exist at over 30 colleges, from Maine to  
California=
,
with many more getting started around the world. Students for  
FreeCulture
was founded by two Swarthmore students after they sued voting-machine
manufacturer Diebold for abusing copyright law in 2003. Named after  
the boo=
k
Free Culture by Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig, it is
part of a growing movement, with roots in the free software/open source
community, media activists, creative artists and writers, and civil
libertarians. Groups with which it has collaborated include Creative
Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and  
Downhill
Battle. Students for Free Culture is on the Web at
http://www.freeculture.org.

*PLoS*
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of
scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and
medical literature a freely available public resource. PLoS publishes  
open
access, peer-reviewed journals available online to anyone. PLoS  
celebrates
their fifth anniversary on October 13, 2008. PLoS is on the Web at
www.plos.org.



--
--------------------------
Jennifer McLennan
Director of Communications
SPARC
(The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources
Coalition)http://www.arl.org/sparc
**************************
Save the date: The SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting 2008
November 17  18, 2008 | Baltimore, MD
**************************
(202) 296-2296 ext 121jennifer at arl.org

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.