The EU has released the results of its public consultation (May 16, 2008 - September 15, 2008) on the PSI Directive.  Excerpt: Also see the submitted comments themselves.

Denmark's publicly-funded digital research library, Danmarks Elektroniske Fag- og Forskningsbibliotek (DEFF), signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge on November 17. (Thanks to Anja Lengenfelder.) Also see our past posts on DEFF.

Freedom from Fear is a new magazine of applied research on crime prevention from the Max Planck Institute and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Research Institute (UNICRI).  (Thanks to Klaus Graf.) The inaugural issue is now online, awkwardly.  Clicking the link doesn't display the PDF or even download the PDF.  It downloads a zip file which unzips into a PDF.  ( Why? ) It appears to be OA.

Lawrence Lessig and others have drafted three Principles for an Open Transition for the Obama administration.  Excerpt: The site is also collecting signatures in support of the principles. PS:  If you're inclined to sign these principles, then you should also vote for the proposal that Obama administration should require OA to publicly-funded research.

Dorothea Salo, IRs in 2009: the failure legacy, Caveat Lector , December 1, 2008.

Stevan Harnad, What Institutions Can Do To Facilitate the Transition to Open Access, Open Access Archivangelism , December 1, 2008.

In a 4:50 minute podcast interview, Nick Sheppard talks about OA and how price barriers interfere with his research.  Shepperd is the Repository Development Officer at Leeds Metropolitan University.  He describes the interview briefly on his blog, but doesn't tell us who the interviewer is, the occasion, or the date.  The version at the link above cuts out at minute 4:50 in the middle of a sentence.

The Open Access Directory (OAD) just opened a section of Interviews and profiles within the larger Bibliography of open access. Remember that OAD is a wiki and counts on users to keep its lists comprehensive, accurate, and up to date.

BioMed Central is running a contest for its Facebook page:

I just mailed the December issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter .  In this issue I offer my predictions for the coming year, focusing on what to expect from the Obama administration and the worldwide recession.  The round-up section briefly notes 137 OA developments from November.

The Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries's November 2008 issue is a theme issue on "Open Access: today and tomorrow". See these articles on OA: P. Morgan, Open Data: the elephant in the room N. Pinhas, Open Access for health and medicine in France P. De Castro, et al., The open access policy of the Italian National Institute of Health: steps forward to innovative publishing habits Yvonne Hultman Özek, Report