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How can universities securely preserve the research of their faculty members and others–without giving away the goodies to greedy commercial publications, which then turn around and overcharge schools’ libraries?

Or at least without being quite as dependent on the gougers?

Earlier we listed MIT as among the institutions interested in do-it-yourself archiving. Now, via a Wired News article, come details of DSpace, a joint project with Hewlett Packard. Encouragingly, this could lead to a model for other universities to use–hopefully with easy simultaneous access to the archives of all the schools.

The TeleRead take: While these archives are for research institutions rather than society at large, they are a step in the right direction–especially if the public can enjoy access to the information. Furthermore, some of the archival technology ultimately could be of use to a TeleRead-style library system.

An aside: Commercial journals have their benefits. TeleRead is not against them–rather, against the gouges that are so common. Certainly, material could end up in both the free databases and the commercial publication. At any rate, the DSpace project and similar ones could lead to more rapid and thorough peer reviews–a benefit for everyone.

(Found via Library Stuff. Thanks, Steve.)

 
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