Thirteenth International Conference on Grey Literature Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA December 5-6, 2011
Abstracts
Conference Program (PDF)
Opening Session
Welcome Address A Discussion on Legal Aspects of Grey Literature Blane Dessy, Matthew Braun, Law Library of Congress, United States and Joachim Schöpfel, University of Lille, France What is the legal status of grey literature? How does intellectual property law protect grey items? Does it? In the bulk of publications on grey literature, only few studies deal with legal aspects. This may have at least three reasons. Law and justice are complicated and fast moving topics, especially in the environment of new technologies and Internet. Grey literature is not a homogeneous concept but covers a great variety of documents. And finally, because of the internationality of the GreyNet community, we face different situations and legal traditions. In the global village, national or regional traditions of law and justice are converging. Moral and economic author’s rights, copyright, fair use, private use and exceptions are reshaped by technology and e-commerce. Processing of grey literature needs knowledge and awareness of the national and international legal environment. At the beginning of our discussion was Blane’s reaction to a statement Joachim made at the GL12 Prague conference: “A digital object is grey literature if and only if it is an item protected by intellectual property rights. In other words, grey literature implies authorship and a character of works of the mind” (Schöpfel, 2011). Blane objected that this definition would not apply to US grey literature since the legal context was different from France and other countries. We continued this discussion on a project wiki in order to progress in mutual understanding and exchange of arguments and information. The paper is derived from this collaborative work. It is work in progress. It tries to provide if not an answer so at least a clarification of the problem. Our approach is to analyse and compare legal aspects for different kinds of grey literature (theses, reports, working papers, communications…) between the United States of America and France, with special attention to digital rights. Our communication will present five results: 1.The paper will provide a short overview of recent studies on grey literature and intellectual property. 2.It will suggest a typology of copyright protection for grey literature. 3.It will highlight new trends. 4.It will contribute to the debate on a new definition of grey literature. 5.It will reflect on the special case of classified documents. Can classification be considered as a protection such as intellectual property? What about dissemination of classified documents (Wikileaks)? Our paper will include a comment on the nature and legal character of those documents. Are they grey? May they become grey? Which role or obligation for libraries?
Keynote Address
Mixing black and white makes grey: The spectrum of scientific exchange over time
Jens Vigen, European Centre for Nuclear Research, CERN, Switzerland
Exchange of scientific theories and experimental results between human beings have always taken place; initially carried by the oral tradition, then in writing, so followed by print and now we are well into in the digital era with all its opportunities, pitfalls and challenges. Scientific exchange, on an advanced level, was originally restricted to a very limited subset of the entire population. With the invention of the printing press, this was gradually changed and made science available to the masses. However, in some cases stiff pricing schemes are still restricting parts of the scientific exchange to academics affiliated with wealthy institutions - a situation that unfortunately also has been carried forward into the digital age. Today, two decades after the invention of the World Wide Web, there is no reason that not all scientific information shall not be available to anybody interested. But ..., there is always a but. Who shall cover the costs?And the information that is freely accessible today might be gone tomorrow, i.e. who shall ensure the curation of material stored in scientific blogs and what is being exchanged through social media? We have moved from a scheme with highly limited exchange to a world with a maximum of exchange - always building on knowledge gained by the previous generations; but to which extent will our current exchange be passed on to future generations? The keynote will discuss which formal structures have to be in place to ensure scientific exchange over time.
Opening Paper
Science-Forums.net: A Platform for Scientific Sharing and Collaboration
Marilyn J. Davis, OSTI-DOE and Lance Vowell, IIA Inc., United States
The beta website of Science-Forums.net, was developed by Information International Associates, Inc. (IIa), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI). Leveraging scientist/researcher information contained in databases managed by OSTI, Science-Forums.net will enable scientists to easily collaborate on a scientific topic of interest. In addition to potential commercial applications, the functionality of Science-Forums.net is well suited to OSTI’s family of scientific and technical information websites, supporting communications on topics related to DOE research and development. The overall objective of the research project, entitled Interactive Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Scientific Communication in the Digital Library Environment Project, was to research and identify web-based tools and other concepts that would foster online interaction and collaboration among scientists and researchers with the purpose of facilitating scientific discovery and innovation. During Phase I, the methods used included (1) a survey of available technologies (2) analysis and prioritization of technologies (3) design and planning of foundational tool for online interaction (4) development and implementation of approaches for obtaining feedback from researchers and scientists (5) research into privacy and communications examples and guidelines to address government privacy and survey requirements. In Phase II, the primary focus has been the further (1) development of the foundational tool into a beta-ready site available for feedback from a test group of previously identified and admittedly interested researchers and (2) refinement of the privacy policy and user terms and conditions documents. With the beta site ready for near-term feedback from the DOE research community, the development team is optimistic that the site will be as attractive and functional as our internal testing has suggested it will be, scientists will find it a useful and innovative way to communicate, and scientific discovery will be further advanced as a result.
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