This was alluded to in the Daily Pennsylvanian column which we linked to yesterday, but here's official confirmation that the University of Pennsylvania may form a group to consider OA: Minutes from the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, September 23, 2009:

Two recent comments on the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity, where students from schools not participating in the compact call on their universities to do so: Danny Crichton, On open access, Stanford’s leadership falters, The Stanford Daily, September 29, 2009. Lindsey Stull, Strengthening shoulders, The Daily Pennsylvanian, September 29, 2009. Also see comments by Parker Higgins of Students for Free Culture.

On September 24, the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced its latest National Leadership Grants. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) Among the grants is $850,000 to Georgia Tech to develop a statewide IR: Several of the other grants ($17.9 million in all) are also related to OA; see the full list, especially the "Advancing Digital Resources" category.

Two related OA textbooks initiatives from Florida: In May, Governor Charlie Crist signed a bill (HB 7121) which created the Florida Distance Learning Consortium.

U.Va. Faculty Senate Weighs Access to Scholarly Articles, UVA Today, September 28, 2009. See also our past post on the proposed mandate or all past posts on UVa.

Jadranka Stojanovski, Jelka Petrak, and Bojan Macan, The Croatian national open access journal platform, Learned Publishing, October 2009. Abstract: See also our past post on Hrčak.

Jeff Young, College Bookstores Hope to Turn Their Web Sites Into E-Book Portals, The Wired Campus, September 24, 2009. Also see the NACS press release.

Alan K. Cubbage, Northwestern Reaffirms Commitment to University Press; TriQuarterly Magazine Goes Electronic, Northwestern University NewsCenter, September 21, 2009. Jennifer Howard, Literary Circles Reel at Northwestern's Plans for 'TriQuarterly', Chronicle of Higher Education, September 24, 2009.

John MacColl, Mendeley scrobbles your papers, HangingTogether, September 24, 2009. Comment. To me, the better analogy may be Napster. I don't necessarily mean that pejoratively: both Napster and Mendeley watch a folder on the user's computer and automatically share files in that folder. That takes the effort out of sharing, which means more documents get shared.

OA publisher BioMed Central launched its 200th journal this week, the Journal of Angiogenesis Research.

Open Access Week is coming up on October 19-23, 2009. Here's a taste of what's coming: DuraSpace is looking for repository success stories to highlight during OA Week. The deadline for entries is September 28. SPARC is hosting a pre-OA Week Webcast on student engagement on September 30. The Repositories Support Project is holding a contest to find the UK university which receives the most deposits in its IR during OA Week.