February SPARC Open Access Newsletter
The February issue of Peter Suber’s SPARC Open Access Newsletter is now available:
January 2008 was a nearly unsurpassed month for institutional OA policies. The two biggest policy breakthroughs came back to back: on January 10, the European Research Council announced its new OA mandate (pledged in December 2006) and on January 11, the US National Institutes of Health released the text of its new OA mandate (demanded by Congress in December 2007). Also in January, Italy’s Istituto Superiore di Sanità adopted a new OA mandate, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute OA mandate took effect (adopted in June 2007), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research OA mandate took effect (adopted in September 2007), and the Charles Sturt University OA mandate became generally known (probably adopted in early 2007). The Swiss Academy of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Spain’s National Research Council, and Hokkaido University adopted OA policies recommending but not requiring green OA, and the Russian cabinet clarified and reaffirmed a 2005 OA mandate for public sector information that was not being enforced. Altogether that makes three new mandates, two start dates for previous mandates, one public disclosure of an older mandate, one tightening of an older mandate, and three near-mandates –ten developments in eight countries (Australia, Canada, EU, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and the US).
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