The January issue of Learned Publishing is now online. See especially these articles: Kate Wittenberg, The Gutenberg-e project: opportunities and challenges in publishing born-digital monographs (only an abstract is OA, at least so far;

If you recall, last month CERN opened a plum job on its SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) project for someone knowledgeable about OA and scientific publishing and willing to supervise a major research project.  CERN has extended the application deadline until January 12, 2009, and created a new web page of details. This is important work and valuable experience with good pay and perks.

David Bollier, The Public Domain as a “Jungle”, On the commons , October 28, 2008.  A book review of Eva Wirtén's Terms of Use:  Negotiating the Jungle of the Intellectual Commons, University of Toronto Press, September 2008.

Adam Corson-Finnerty, Seven Questions About the GBS Deal, Musings of Mine , December 8, 2008.

Temple University has decided to require OA to all its doctoral dissertations, starting with those completed August 2008.  (Thanks to Charles Bailey.)  From the announcement (December 4, 2008): Comment. Kudos to Temple.

The Open Knowledge Foundation has launched Open Milton.  From the site: Comments "Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?"

Chuck Thomas and Robert H. McDonald, In Search Of A Standardized Model for Institutional Repository Assessment or How Can We Compare Institutional Repositories?  A presentation at the Library Assessment Conference 2008, Seattle, August 4-7, 2008.

Sujal Parikh and John Prensner, Proposal to impose fees on research articles should be rejected, The Ann Arbor News , December 8, 2008.  An editorial.  Parikh and Prensner are students at the University of Michigan Medical School and members of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.  Excerpt: PS:  For background, see my analysis of the bill and the deceptive rhetoric the publishing lobby is using to support it.

Jane Park, The Student-engineered Open Textbook: Chemical Process Dynamics and Controls, Creative Commons blog, December 4, 2008. A profile of Chemical Process Dynamics and Controls.

The November 25 issue of Lab Times is now available. (Thanks to Victor Henning.) See especially these articles: Open access publishing - Becoming The Norm?

CommonLII has added a database of English Reports from 1220-1873. See blog posts at Slaw.ca or by Michel-Adrien Sheppard (1, 2).