The UN Office of Legal Affairs launched new OA research tools on January 23, 2009.

Jed Sundwall, Interview with Rufus Pollock of the Open Knowledge Foundation, NetSquared, January 22, 2009.

Roddy MacLeod, I want to be completely honest with you about ticTOCs, News from ticTOCs, January 27, 2009. Discusses feedback on the OA indexing and current awareness system ticTOCs, including which features are under development (and which aren't).

Alexey Maslov, et al., Cooperation or Control? Web 2.0 and the Digital Library, Journal of Digital Information, 2009.

Hereditary Cancer in Clinical Practice has converted to OA with BioMed Central. The article-processing charge is £850/US$1175/€900, subject to discounts and waivers. Authors retain copyright and articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, Legal Education Commons Launches with Open Access to 700,000 Court Decisions, press release, January 26, 2009. See also our past post announcing the project.

Joel Garreau, Smithsonian Click-n-Drags Itself Forward, Washington Post, January 26, 2009. (Thanks to techPresident.) See also Peter's recent post on the Smithsonian's new chief. Update (Peter). Also see Dan Cohen's notes on the same meeting.

Mirosław Garbacz, et al., Krajowe czasopisma Open Access, presented at Komputerowe wspomaganie badań naukowych (Polanica Zdrój, Poland, October 22-24, 2008); self-archived January 25, 2009.

Hélène Bosc, Open access to the scientific literature: a peer commons open to the public, presented at Copyright Regulation in Europe – An Enabling or Disabling Factor for Science Communication (Berlin, November 14-15, 2008); self-archived January 19, 2009.

Indian Open Access Forum is a new discussion list devoted to achieving OA in India, now open for new subscribers.

The Journal of Oral Microbiology is a new peer-reviewed OA journal from Co-Action Publishing.  For more detail, see today's press release or Ingar Olsen's editorial in the inaugural issue.