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Online journal movement loses leader| WASHINGTON, April 29, 2005 -- A leader of the open-access movement, Richard Johnson, has resigned as executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. The coalition of libraries, SPARC for short, has been a leader in promoting lower-cost communciation among scientists by posting their work online. Johnson said he feels SPARC is at a high point in its work against the high subscription rates that the commercial publishers of traditional academic journals charge to libraries. Johnson said that SPARC has made open-access a public policy issue. It's time, Johnson said, for him to "step away." |
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Booksellers: Gonazles promise falls shortWASHINGTON, April 16, 2005 -- The chief operating officer of the American Booksellers Association, Oren Teicher, said the Bush Administration needs to go further to restore civil protections for book-lovers than Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has suggested. It was not enough that Gonzales told the Senate thet the government has no intentions to use the 2001 Patriot Act to spy on the bookstore customers, techier said: "As long as there is a law on the books that a government agency can seach a bookstore's records without probable cause, we will object."At issue is Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which gives the FBI authority in terrorist investigations to bypass a judge's review and go directly into bookstore and library records to monitor reading habits.
Background:
Bush Administration softens on Section 215 |
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Harvard author excused in plagiary case| CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, April 15, 2005 -- Harvard University law professor Laurence H. Tribe has been excused by a univerity investigation into passages in his book God Save This Honorable Court that mirror passages in earlier work by retired University of Virginia political scientist Abraham J. Abraham. Tribe was faulted for failing to cite the source for several passages in his 1985 book, but, said investigators, the lapses were unintentional. At issue were several sentences, the similarity on which was cited in the Weekly Standard last year. Tribe mentions Abraham's book in the index but the similar passages are not credited specifically. In a statement Harvard said that the institution's "conclusions and concerns" had been expressed to Tribe and that te matter now is closed. Tribe said that he was "gratified that the university's inquiry found no basis for accusations of dishonesty or of intellectual theft." |
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Changes at BioMed open-access journals| WASHINGTON, April 14, 2005 -- The largest open-access publisher, BioMed, announced that its publisher, Jan Velterop, would resign soon to continue work on his own in the open-access movement. Velterop said he wants to develop a business model for others to use in lowering financial barriers to the exchange of scientific research and ideas, including hight-cost acdemic journal subscriptions. Velterop will be succeeded by Matthew Cockerill as BioMed operations director and Anne Greenwood as managing director. Both are now with BioMed, which publishes more than 100 online journals. |
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Booksellers bookmarks slap Section 215| NEW YORK, April 13, 2005 -- To encourage patrons to sign petitions against secret federal searches of bookstore records, the American Booksellers Association has designed a dark spy logo and slogan: "Is Someone Reading Over Your Shoulder?" The slogan has gone on bookmarks for bookstores to distribute to customers. Stores have petitions, which call for Section 215 of the Patriot Act to bed purged from a provision that allows government agents to probe into bookstore and library records to identify who is reading suspect material. |
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 ABA bookmark: "Is Someone Reading Over Your Shoulder?" |
Persecuted Turkish publisher lauded for courage| WASHINGTON, April 12, 2005 -- Turkish publisher Abdullah Keskin, whose books on politically sensitive Kurdish issues have made him the target of censorship by the Turkish government, has been awareded the International Freedom to Publish Award by the Association of American Pujblishers. Keskin's publishing house Avesta, founded in 1996, was putting out books in Kurdish, at the time forbidden by the Turkish government.
More than 10 of Avestaıs books, including After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness: My Encounters with Kurdistan by Washington Post correspondent Jonathan Randal, have been banned by the Turkish government. At various times Keskin was charged with disseminating separatist propaganda and faced imprisonment and heavy fines. Although Turkeyıs laws have changed, the books remain banned. |
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McGraw announces third stock split| NEW YORK, April 11, 2005 -- The McGraw-Hill Companies asnnounced a two-for-one common-share stock split for shareholders of record on May 6. The split is the corporation's third since 1996. |
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Bush Administration softens on Patriot ActWASHINGTON, April 4, 2005 -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a Senate committee that the government has "no interest" in using the anti-terrorism 2001 Patriot Act to check into what books ordinary Americans check out of libraries. The statement was a major softening of the Bush Administration posture on needing powerful new tools to counter terrorism. Section 215 of the Patriot Act, passed after the September 11, 2001, jetliner attacks in New York and Washington, allows federal agents to raid library and bookstore records secretly to see who is reading what -- and to do so without demonstrating probable cause beforehand to a judge. Librarian, publisher, author, academic and civil libertarian organizations have been unified against the provision.
In testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales said the Justice Department has never used Section 215 ro search library or bookstore records. That claim, voiced also by Gonzales' predecessor, John Ashcroft, is not without challenge. The fact may never be known publicly, however. Section 215 forbids librarians and bookstore people to make known whether the FBI has entered their records.
The thrust of Gonzales' testimony seemed to be that a compromise now is acceptable to the Bush Administration on Section 215 to protect citizen privacy from government intrusion. In the House, Representative Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, has propposed a Freedom to Read Protection Act against FBI library and bookstore searches. Privacy safeguards also are in the proposed Security and Freedom Enhancement Act before the Senate.
Background:
Judge looks at Patriot Act secrecy |
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| Wilbert J. McKeachie (math) University of Michigan, and Marilla D. Svinicki (math), University of Texas-Austin, wrote the 12th edition of McKeachie's Teaching Tips (Houghton Mifflin). |
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| FINANCIALS POSTED APRIL 9, 2005 |
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| McGraw-Hill Ryerson. Sales fell 20 percent to C$8.6 million in the first quarter ended March 31. Higher-ed was off 8.7 percent to C$3.6 million. El-hi was off 37 percent to C$2.7 million. Trade, professional and medical was off 10 percent to C$1.8 million.
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