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FASTR Ensures that Publicly Funded Research Belongs to the Public
When taxpayers pay for research, everyone should have access to it.
Thats the simple premise of the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act of 2015 (S.779, H.R.1477), or FASTR. If enacted, FASTR would keep federally funded research where it belongs, in the hands of the public. Under FASTR, every federal agency that spends more than $100 million on grants for research would be required to adopt an open access policy. Although the bill gives each agency some leeway in adopting a policy appropriate to the types of research it funds, each one would require that published research be available to the public no later than six months after publication.
FASTR was first introduced in 2013. Shortly after that, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a memo requiring agencies to develop public access policies. We applauded the directive then, while noting that it was not as strong as FASTR—most notably, the White House directive sets the embargo period for making federally funded research available to the public at 12 months and frames it as a "guideline." FASTR would lock the policy into law and reduce the embargo to six months, a win for public access.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/fastr-ensures-publicly-funded-research-belongs-public.
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Open Access:
Museum Specimens Find New Life Online
In a brightly lit room on the third floor of the Museum of Natural History here [Berlin], stacks of wooden drawers are covered in glass, some panes so dusty that it is difficult to discern exactly what’s inside. When the glass is removed, rows of carefully pinned insects are revealed, gleaming in brilliant colors like precious jewels. The biologist Alexander Kroupa plucks an amethyst-colored beetle from the drawers with metal pincers. "Amazing, right?" he said. "As beautiful as the day they were collected."
Mr. Kroupa and 14 colleagues are in the midst of a vast undertaking: digitizing and publishing online the museum’s entire collection of insects, including high-definition 3-D images of thousands of particularly important specimens. The researchers here are not alone. Museums around the globe are trying to harness the power of digital technology to make available collections that have long lay dormant on shelves and in dusty cabinets. For years, scientific institutions have scanned images of specimen drawers or individuals in their collections. But technical advances provide new opportunities to create extraordinarily detailed images and data that may be critical to answering some of the biggest questions in conservation biology, experts say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/science/putting-museums-samples-of-life-on-the-internet.html
http://www.zoosphere.net/.\
How Trade Agreements Harm Open Access and Open Source
Open access isn’t explicitly covered in any of the secretive trade negotiations that are currently underway, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade In Services Agreement (TISA). But that doesn’t mean that they won’t have a negative impact on those seeking to publish or use open access materials.
First, online publishers sometimes apply TPM (Technological Protection Measures, which implement DRM) to works that have been published under open access licences, or place such works behind paywalls, thereby frustrating the intention of the author that the works should be made freely available. In both cases, circumventing the TPM or paywall block, in order to gain access to the work as the author intended, can be a civil or criminal offense.
As for those who distribute publicly-funded works from behind paywalls, the charges brought against both the late Aaron Swartz, and also Colombian Diego Gomez are cautionary tales. The "trade secrets" provision of the TPP raises the prospect of further such unjust prosecutions. Although so described, the provision is not really about trade secrets in the traditional sense (namely, those who knowingly assume and breach an obligation of confidence), but is targeted at hackers who access information on a computer system in excess of their authorization to do so, even if they had never agreed to keep any information confidential.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/how-trade-agreements-harm-open-access-and-open-source
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Digital History:
How Wikipedia Is Hostile to Women
She got into the habit of Googling her username, just in case. That’s how, earlier this year, a Wikipedia editor who goes by the username Lightbreather discovered that someone was posting images on a pornographic website and falsely claiming they were her. (The images were linked to her username; Lightbreather has been careful to make sure that no one on Wikipedia knows her real name.) A Google search of the poster’s username led her back to one of her fellow editors.
The photos were only the latest of several incidents of harassment. In 2014, Lightbreather made a request to the Wikipedia administrators: a space on the site to discuss ways to enforce Wikipedia’s civility policy, one of the site’s "five pillars" which says editors should always "treat each other with respect and civility." In a page set up to discuss Lightbreather’s request, the user Eric Corbett, who was then an administrator, told her, "The easiest way to avoid being called a cunt is not to act like one."
In 2011, an internal study estimated that less than 10 percent of Wikipedia editors are female. The disparity is even starker among more experienced editors: Another study from 2011, out of the University of Minnesota, showed that only 6 percent of contributors with more than 500 edits are women. The gender disparity among editors, in other words, has led to serious issues with Wikipedia’s content. One longtime editor, the Chicago-based college student Emily Temple-Wood, said she’s identified almost than 4,400 female scientists who meet Wikipedia’s standards for notability, but don’t have a page. And in 2013, a New York Times reporter discovered that all female novelists had been removed from the list of American novelists and relegated to their own list, "American woman novelists." (The pages have since been combined back into one.) As a study by researchers in Germany and Switzerland found earlier this year, the pages that do exist about notable women are more likely to mention their gender and relationship status than articles about men.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/how-wikipedia-is-hostile-to-women/411619/.
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Public Policy:
IRS petitioned to punish politically active nonprofit
Political watchdog group Citizens for Responsbility and Ethics in Washington wants the Internal Revenue Service to punish a nonprofit group that spent millions of dollars on advertisements boosting Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., ahead of his election victory last year. The IRS complaint follows a Center for Public Integrity investigation into Carolina Rising’s political activities, which CREW cites several times.
Carolina Rising provided "a vehicle for donors to make unlimited secret contributions to benefit candidates, and that is not permitted under the law," the organization’s Executive Director Noah Bookbinder argues. "While the public is kept in the dark, the candidate or official almost certainly knows who made the often-large contributions."
In the complaint, Bookbinder asks the IRS to consider stripping Carolina Rising of its nonprofit status, hitting the group with excise taxes and treating it as a taxable corporation or political group.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/18649.
Schock fallout: Sweeping changes proposed to [House] members’ spending
A key House committee is proposing sweeping restrictions on how members of Congress spend taxpayer dollars, tightening the rules on reimbursement for automobile mileage, private aircraft use and office decoration. The proposed rules, which are expected to pass the Committee on House Administration on Wednesday and take effect immediately, are just the initial set of changes under consideration, said Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.). He and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) have been leading a task force focused on reviewing rules for office spending.
The proposed rules come on the heels of a series of Politico stories detailing former Rep. Aaron Schock’s (R-Ill.) alleged misspending of taxpayer dollars. A grand jury in Illinois has been investigating how Schock spent taxpayer and campaign money. Most notably, members of Congress would be prohibited from using taxpayer dollars to pay for "private or charter aircraft" from Washington. If a lawmaker wants to spend more than $7,500 on a private flight, "written approval must be obtained from the Committee on House Administration," the proposed rules state. Schock flew on a private plane from Washington to Illinois for events and a Chicago Bears football game.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/aaron-schock-committee-recommends-sweeping-changes-to-congressional-office-spending-214956#ixzz3p7fr4Rjy.
New Report Finds Chemical Industry Is "Blowing Smoke" When It Claims Self-Regulation Works
In a new report and interactive map released today, Blowing Smoke, the Center for Effective Government finds that a significant number of chemical manufacturing facilities are endangering workers and our environment, despite what the chemical industry tells policymakers, regulators, and the American public.
"Every two days, there is a reportable leak or explosion at a U.S. chemical plant," said Katherine McFate, president and CEO of the Center for Effective Government. "But the chemical industry keeps telling us companies can regulate themselves and no new oversight is needed."
The chemical industry spends tens of millions of dollars a year fighting bills and standards designed to better protect the workers in their facilities and the communities nearby. For more than a quarter century, the industry’s trade association, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), has operated a voluntary program that it claims can improve industry performance and safety without new requirements to shift to safer substances and production processes when they are available. Twelve large chemical companies own 89 chemical manufacturing facilities with multiple serious workplace safety and environmental violations; together, they were responsible for 644 serious violations of workplace or environmental rules. (58 percent of manufacturing facilities were not inspected during this time, so these numbers are very likely an undercount of actual violations.)
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blowing-smoke-press-release.
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Privacy Issues:
EFF To California Supreme Court: Warrantless Searches of California’s Controlled Substance Prescription Database Threaten Patient Privacy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging the California Supreme Court to rule that law enforcement agents need a warrant to search records revealing which Californians were prescribed controlled substances to treat conditions such as anxiety, pain, attention disorders, and insomnia.
In an amicus brief filed today, EFF told the state’s highest court that law enforcement agencies should be required to seek a judge’s approval to access such records. Controlled substance prescription records contain highly sensitive information about patients’ medical history and should be afforded the same degree of privacy as any other medical records.
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-california-supreme-court-warrantless-searches-californias-controlled-substance.
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Freedom of Information:
Former CRS employees put heat on Congress to make reports public
Earlier today, a letter was delivered to a group of lawmakers with the power to push the Congressional Research Service (CRS) toward the sunlight. The letter urged them to make nonconfidential CRS reports available to the public. Signed by former employees of the CRS who together represent more than 500 years of experience at the agency, the letter calls for "timely, comprehensive free public access to CRS reports."
Currently, the CRS reports are widely available to congressional staff and lobbyists, and members and committees can disseminate CRS products on their websites. The CRS also provides reports by request to journalists, the judicial branch and the executive branch. They often make their way online, but not in a comprehensive manner. Those able to pay can access the reports through a number of third-party subscription services. The reports are useful to the public because of their nonpartisan essence, rare in a world of spin, and because they cover the wide range of issues that Congress cares about. Not to mention that taxpayers pay more than $100 million annually for this service to exist and operate.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/10/22/crs-reports-public/.
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Libraries:
Digital Inclusion Survey documents libraries transforming
This week marks the release of one of the most powerful tools ALA and public libraries have to make our case in the digital age—the 2014 Digital Inclusion Survey. Not only does it provide the most current and granular data available on library technology and programming resources, but the Information Policy & Access Center team at the University of Maryland is doing more with the data than ever before.
So what did we learn this year?
– Helping people identify health insurance resources was the top health and wellness program offering from public libraries at 59.4 percent. Programs related to helping patrons local and evaluate free health information (57.7%) and use subscription health and wellness resources (56.2%) were right behind.
– Digital content offerings continue to climb, with more than 90 percent of public libraries offering e-books, online homework assistance (95%) and online language learning (56%), to name a few.
– For the first time, the survey also looked at the age of library buildings and found 1970 (!) was the average year that library locations opened. The report also finds a correlation between building renovations and increased service offerings.
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2015/10/digital-inclusion-survey-documents-libraries-transforming/.
MSU debuts largest U.S. media collection in country
Feeling like Netflix has nothing left to offer? Worn out the latest and greatest playlists on Spotify?
Fear not, Michigan State University Libraries now hosts the largest collection of U.S. media, including CDs, DVDs and video games in the country. The donation came courtesy of the analytics and media monetization firm Rovi Corporation, which previously stored the collection in Ann Arbor. Unveiled Monday afternoon at the MSU Main Library, the collection is comprised of approximately 681,000 albums, 163,000 films and 17,000 video games spanning the past 35 years of popular culture. Everything from little-known Commodore 64 titles to Super Mario Bros. is now available at MSU, said Clifford Haka, director of MSU Libraries.
While the collection will have immense recreational interest, the opportunity for studying the past three decades of media is significant, he said. "We have an obligation to ensure these materials are used and we fully intend to make sure that happens," he said.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/10/20/media-msu-east-lansing/74258994/.
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The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.