Materials from International scientific-practical conference INFORMATIO-2006 "Informational resources: problems of creation, usage and access"

October 2–6, 2006, Alushta: International scientific-practical conference INFORMATIO-2006 "Informational resources: problems of creation, usage and access" has been carried out; 100 experts of library and informational technologies participated.

Organizers of the conference: The "Informatio-Consortium" Association, "Vidrodzhenya" ("Revival") International Fund, Ukrainian library association, National parliamentary library of Ukraine, Scientific library of the "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" National university, the "Fraksim" Institute of mathematical modeling, Franko Crimean republican universal scientific library, Scientific library of the Tavria National university, under the auspices of the Ministry o Culture and Tourism of Ukraine, with financial support of the "Ebsco Host" Company (the Netherlands), the "Elsevier" Company (the Netherlands), Department of the press, education and culture of the embassy of USA in Ukraine and IMM "Fraksim " (Ukraine).

One of the conference’s sections was dedicated to open access to scientific and educational informational resources.

Lisa Homman, USA State Department, has told about 25 web sites in 25 minutes – the most recent web sites and applications for the Web:

• Universal search engines:
                     http://www.a9.com/;
                     - answers to questions;
                     http://www.exalead.com/;
                     http://www.answers.com/
                     http://www.answers.com/;
                     - search of books in libraries;
                     - search in web logs;
                     - search in web logs;
                    
• Services for active people:
                     http://del.icio.us/ - web-bookmarks instead of favorites on your favorite desktop;
                     photo exchange: http://flickr.com/;
                     http://www.librarything.com/ - on-line catalogue of your books;
                     http://h2obeta.law.harvard.edu/home.do - discussion of books; dailymashup.com
• Google services:
                     http://scholar.google.com/;
                     http://books.google.com/;
                     http://www.google.com/press/
• Google api proximity: 
                     http://www.staggernation.com/cgi-bin/gaps.cgi
• Other resources and services:
                     Snippet for web sites creation, for determination of a web site’s popularity;
                     http://yourtube.com/ for search;
                     for communication (instead of a telephone);
                     http://www.jybe.com/ for common creation of web-browsers.

Viktoria Choch, IMM "Fraksim", has presented open systems of scientific information search.

Oksana Bruy, Scientific library of the "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" National University, shared experience in development of a repository of open access
Tetyana Raguzina, the Yanovsky Institute of phthisiology and pulmonology of the AMS of Ukraine, has told about creation and usage of the Institute’s electronic documental archive and about open access medical magazines published by the Yanovsky Institute of phthisiology and pulmonology of the AMS of Ukraine: 

• Ukrainian pulmonologic magazine: http://www.ifp.kiev.ua/doc/journals/upj_ukr.htm 
• Ukrainian chemotherapeutic magazine: http://www.ifp.kiev.ua/doc/journals/uhj_ukr.htm 
• The archive of the "Asthma and Allergy" magazine: http://www.ifp.kiev.ua/doc/journals/aa_ukr.htm.

Viktoria Donets, Central scientific library of the Karazin Kharkiv National University, presented international projects of preservation of cultural heritage.

All the materials of the conference will soon be available on this website: http://www.informatio.org.ua/

Seminar "Open access to scientific information: the Internet – new possibilities. Part 2: Copyright in conditions of open access"

The seminar "Open access to scientific information: the Internet – new possibilities. Part 2: Copyright in conditions of open access" was conducted on November, 13 in Goethe’s Institute in Ukraine. Organizers of the seminar: Fridrih Nauman’s Fund, Goethe’s Institute in Ukraine, "Vidrodzhenya" ("Revival") International Fund.

Participants of the seminar were greeted by Marion Gaaze, the director of the Goethe’s Institute in Ukraine, Manfred Vihman, the manager of the North-Eastern European project of the Fridrih Nauman’s Fund and Iryna Kuchma, the manager of the "Social capital and academic publications" program of the "Vidrodzhenya" ("Revival") International Fund.

Sasha Knauf, graduate in law, Gottingen University (Germany), has made a presentation "Open access – global device for society development".

Despite difficult economic situation of state budgets and constant increase of expenses for support of scientific field with necessary information, we strive to develop "the society of knowledge" now and in future. One of the possible ways out of the so-called "publication crisis" can be found in the idea of open access. The expenses can be lowered and the access to information for all interested people can become easier; it can be done by archiving and opening access to research results carried out by scientific and educational organizations themselves.

According to the Berlin Declaration about open access to information in the field of human and natural sciences, "author(s) and owner(s) of copyright for such works grant to all users ultimate right for free access to them around the world, the right to copy, use and spread them, give them to third parties and demonstrate them in public, create and spread derivates from them in all digital ways with appropriate goal and with mentioning the original author, and the right to print copies with small circulation for personal use."

Due to lack of legislative regulation development of open access in Germany, just like development of free software, is mainly based on negotiated principles. Two packages of licenses regulating relations between the author and the user are used for this purpose; they are Creative Commons License and Digital Peer Publishing License. Both licenses have module structure, so they allow the user to adapt the license contract to his individual needs.

Legality of processing and commercial usage of such works remains an important question.

Main principles of licensing: All property rights are owned by the user; Contract is always concluded with the user; The user accepts the terms of the license; "Simple" right of usage is granted.

Not only benefits, but also drawbacks of the open access in its present form, fundamental aspects of the legislative regulation of the competition, responsibility for repositories, and possibilities and advantages of the Digital Rights Management system in the field of the open access were discussed on the seminar.

Sasha Knauf has summarized his report with several theses:

• Open access grants access to the information despite location, thus encourages development of science.
• Due to absence of outer expenses (publishing houses, book stores, etc.) there is a great potential for saving funds.
• Conditions for successful information storage are quality and proper systematization. 
• Scientists’ obligation to publish in open access is a problematic decision, which can negatively influence the motivation of successful scientists.
• Free access product is always somewhat dangerous for the market economy since income-oriented enterprises have to carry out mediate financing (advertisement, service, etc.) in order not to go bankrupt. 
• Granting of full access to information (prohibition of DRM) also limits possibilities of commercial enterprises to gain income from realization of the added value. 
• The stricter the responsibility for information is going to be, the more expensive the open access is going to get.
  Quality control of organizers leads to stricter responsibility since a violation can be exposed.

Upon the end of the report he answered questions and took part in discussion.

About the spokesman: Sasha Knauf, graduate in law, was born in Kassel (Germany) in 1974. After high school got education of a bank officer, then worked in a credit organization doing balances and tax work. In 1997 transferred to his parents’ enterprise that was involved in sales of construction technology. From 2000 to 2004 studied jurisprudence in the George August University in Gottingen (Germany), where he also was a research assistant on the department of civil, trade-economic, multimedia and telecommunication law and comparative jurisprudence under Professor Herald Shpindler’s guidance (until 2005). During this time Sasha Knauf was involved mainly in scientific-research projects in the field of copyright in general and open access particularly. Besides professional reports, he also is a co-author of the "Frame legislative terms of publication in open access" work. In 2006 he was invited to teach in the Centre of inter-discipline media-sciences of the Gottingen University. Currently Sasha Knauf works on the dissertation "Economical analysis of material losses in copyright" under Professor Shpindler’s guidance.

Sasha Knauf, graduate in law, Gottingen University (Germany), "Open access – global device for society development".