Harvard Law faculty votes for ‘open access’ to scholarly articles

May 7, 2008

From an email I received earlier today. Would normally not pay this much attention, but this is the Berkman Center and Open Access is always a good thing

Good afternoon,

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to announce that the faculty of Harvard Law School has unanimously approved a motion for open access: articles will be made freely available in an online repository. With the success of this motion, Harvard Law becomes the first law school to make an institutional commitment to open access to its faculty’s scholarly publications.

In February, Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences unanimously passed an open access motion spearheaded by computer science professor and Berkman faculty co-director Stuart Shieber. Professor Shieber’s work and leadership, along with that of Harvard library director Robert Darnton, paved the way for Berkman faculty director William Fisher and executive director John Palfrey to bring an open access proposal to Harvard Law School.

The Berkman community is tremendously proud and excited about the success of these important initiatives.

The full release from Harvard Law School can be found online at http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2008/05/07_openaccess.php.
Contact: Harvard Law School Office of Communications

The Berkman Center’s announcement, including a link to the full text of the open access motion, can be found online at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/4273.

Image via WikipediaTechnorati Tags: Berkman Center, Open Access