Gavin Baker, Authors: I don’t care where you deposit, just do it, A Journal of Insignificant Inquiry, February 5, 2009. Update (2/6/09).  [Peter Suber:] For my views, see points #3 and #13 in my article from last week on OA policy options. Update (2/7/09).  Also see Stevan Harnad's comments: Update (2/8/09).

Here are a few 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.

Yesterday Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht started providing OA to selected monographs on education research published by its imprint, V&R unipress.  The monographs are from the series, Studien des Georg-Eckert-Instituts zur Internationalen Bildungsmedienforschung , and on deposit in the Fachportal Pädagogik (or pedocs ) document server hosted by the Deutschen Institut für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung (DIPF).

The Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ) adopted an OA mandate on October 24, 2008, which took effect on January 1, 2009.  Excerpt: Comments Kudos to all at the FRSQ.

The presentations are now online from the Data Library 25th Anniversary (Edinburgh, December 5, 2008). See also the detailed notes or blog post by Anne Donnelly.

The PARSE.insight project is conducting a survey of researcher practices and views regarding data re-use and preservation. See also our past post on the PARSE.insight project.

José Manuel Nieves, Un Consejo de Política Científica controlará la investigación en España, ABC.es, February 5, 2009. Read it in the original Spanish or Google's English.

The Spanish principality of Asturias has adopted an OA mandate for its funded research.

Two publisher groups which supported the Conyers bill the last time around are supporting it again.  No surprises here.  From the Statement of Patrick Ross, Executive Director of the Copyright Alliance, February 4, 2009: From the press release of the Association of American Publishers, February 4, 2009: Comments Both statements say or imply that the NIH policy violates publishers' copyrights.

Andrew Brown, Digital Britain needs access to science journals, not YouTube, The Guardian , February 5, 2009.  Excerpt: Comment. Brown is right that OA is a solution to this problem.  Unfortunately, he seems to think that OA can only be delivered by OA journals.  Both of his objections to OA are answered by green OA, or the practice of depositing peer-reviewed postprints in OA repositories.

The Norwegian Research Council has adopted an OA mandate.  (Thanks to Jan Erik Frantsvåg.)  The full text of the policy has not yet been released, but OpenAccess.no has a two-sentence summary.  Here's the summary in Google's English: Comments Kudos to all involved.