I'll be on the road Sunday and Monday, and perhaps Tuesday, with few opportunities for blogging or email.

Here are some more comments from the press and blogosphere on the re-introduction of the Conyers bill (a.k.a. Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801), which would overturn the OA policy at the NIH.

The Budapest Open Access Initiative is seven years old today.  It hasn't been forgotten and hasn't even gotten stale.  For me, it's as fresh and vibrant as ever, and grows in importance as the underlying idea spreads and takes root.

Sarah Boseley, Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline pledges cheap medicine for world's poor, The Guardian, February 13, 2009. Comment. The changes are stunning. It's a remarkable about-face from an industry that has been perhaps the most outspoken advocate of the sanctity of patents.

The OA American Journal of Translational Research has released its first issue. The International Journal of Physiology, Pathophysiology and Pharmacology has released pre-press articles for its first issue. Both are published by e-Century Publishing Corporation. The publishing fee is $100/page, subject to discount and waiver. Authors retain copyright and articles are released under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Official Notification of Authors and Publishers About Google Book Search Copyright Settlement in Progress, press release, February 11, 2009. See also our past posts on the settlement.

Cory Doctorow, Hard data on ebook piracy versus sales -- slides from O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing panel, Boing Boing, February 12, 2009.

Last summer Tilburg University launched an Open Access Publishing Fund as a one-year experiment, set to expire at the end of August 2009.  The fund helps faculty pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals.  Delft University of Technology launched a fund in April 2008 and the Wageningen University and Research Center launched a fund in 2006.

John Schwartz, An Effort to Upgrade a Court Archive System to Free and Easy, New York Times, February 12, 2009. (Thanks to LISNews.) See also the related post from the Times' Lede blog. See also our past posts on PACER.

Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation is proposing a draft law of science and technology which includes an OA mandate, February 11, 2009.

Columbia University Joins European Economics Consortium, press release, February 12, 2009. See also our past post on Columbia joining Nereus.