Data is not only the "new oil of knowledge" but also a new fertile soil which we can water with networks and connectivity. In other terms data is the new soil because they are created from one side by research communities and from the other by public information sector and if data are really open and interconnected, they become a fertile ground that creates not only intellectual wealth, but even the basis for economic recovery. Any restriction on data and on its re-use limits any progress of research and communities development. Between Open Science and Open Government, we can place a third place that connects them both and that concerns the meta information. This middle land is called Open Bibliographic Data or OpenBiblio. This virtual place includes OPACs, databases and open archives. Speaking of Open Data means to place the defining elements within the framework of the Open Knowledge, in a dimension of knowledge that must analyse also the issue of Open Data licenses.
On 17 July 2012, the European Commission outlined measures to improve access to scientific information produced in Europe in two distinct documents: a Communication and a Recommendation to the Member States. Recent Commission public consultations show that researchers, libraries, research funders and businesses believe that there is a problem with access to scientific information and that this is a key barrier to the optimal circulation of knowledge in Europe, affecting both academic research and industrial uptake of research results. Since 2006 the European Commission has been developing policy and measures on open access for a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. In August 2008, the European Commission launched the Open Access Pilot in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Now the Commission has announced its intention to make open access all research findings funded by "Horizon 2020", its enormous (€ 80-billion / US$ 98-billion) research-funding programme for 2014– 20. "Horizon 2020" strategy – which will include both "Green" and "Gold" open access measures – underlines the central role of Open Access knowledge as innovation engine in generating growth.
The 21 September 1999 marked the launch of WebVoyager, the HTTP interface for access to Voyager, the new Library of Congress catalogue. This article describes the characteristics and peculiarities of the new OPAC, its contents and access modalities (available interfaces), making comparisons with the old system on IBM mainframe, LOCIS (Library of Congress Information Systems), which closed on 12 August 1999.Voyager contains almost 12 million records for monographic works, serials, computer files, manuscripts, cartographic material, sound and video material, including the over 4.7 million records from the PREMARC file. At the moment Voyager includes information from more files than the old LOCIS system. The BOOKS files (LOC1, LOC2 and LOC3) include the materials catalogued from 1898 to 1975. With respect to the old LOCIS, Voyager does not include records from other research libraries and records from bibliographies and data bases for materials not held at the Library of Congress.LOCIS "aggregated" the old systems that were separated from one another, with over 30 different files, some of which dated to the end of the Sixties, or the beginning of the Seventies. The Library of Congress decided to break up and locate outside the boundaries of the new OPAC much of that material which was previously described within the catalogue. That material can be accessed from the LC Web site in an integrated way to the OPAC; for example the old Copyright file produced by the Copyright Office, which include bibliographic records and information for documents from 1978 to the present day, can now be consulted from the set of Web pages available on the site; the same is true for the GPO (Government Printing Office) documents, the legal documents and the photographic collections on American memory. The records from the files that include Braille and audio material can be accessed from the Web-BNLD catalog on the LC site of the National Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. The catalogue includes over 2700 electronic volumes in Braille, recently placed on the net for users authorized to access the National Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.The new OPAC can be accessed, as well as from WebVoyager, also through Z39.50 in two ways, simple (keyword) and advanced (with the use of Boolean operators), and in just a textual way (ASCII) of the telnet type. The search and browse capabilities offered by the new OPAC Web are numerous, Subject Browse, Name Browse, Title, Serial Title, Call Number Browse, Guided Keyword, Command Keyword, Keyword, grouped into four modalities: Subject-Name-Title-Call#, Guided Keyword, Command Keyword, Keyword. There are four possible choices for the display of the record: Brief Record, Subject/Content, Full Record, MARC Tag.Various also are the functions available that make the new OPAC a flexible and refined instrument: Limiting Searches, Search History, Boolean Searching, with the offer of a complete set of tools for the refinement of the search, including the use of Boolean operators of specific codes for searching in indexes, of various filters for limiting the search, and a powerful system of relevance ranking to evaluate the items retrieved.Copies of the bibliographic records can be printed, saved or sent to a postal mailbox, one record at a time or as a whole set.Many help screens can be reached from various points of the catalogue and from various search or browse modes. ; Il lancio di WebVoyager, interfaccia HTTP per l'accesso a Voyager, il nuovo catalogo della Library of Congress, è stato effettuato il 21 settembre 1999, presente il gruppo di bibliotecari italiani partecipanti al modulo statunitense del Master "The Digital Library" organizzato dall'Università cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano.Nel presente articolo si descrivono caratteristiche e peculiarità del nuovo OPAC della Library of Congress, contenuti e modalità di accesso, a confronto con il vecchio sistema su mainframe IBM, LOCIS (Library of Congress Information Systems), chiuso il 12 agosto 1999.Voyager contiene quasi 12 milioni di registrazioni relative a monografie, periodici, risorse elettroniche, manoscritti, materiale cartografico, materiale musicale, materiale sonoro e video, compresi oltre 4,7 milioni di registrazioni dal precedente archivio PREMARC. Attualmente sono disponibili in Voyager le informazioni provenienti da più archivi del vecchio sistema LOCIS. Gli archivi BOOKS (LOC1, LOC2 e LOC3) riguardano il materiale catalogato dal 1898 al 1975.Rispetto al vecchio LOCIS non sono confluite in Voyager le registrazioni provenienti da altre biblioteche di ricerca e quelle provenienti da bibliografie e banche dati ma relative a materiale non posseduto dalla Library of Congress.LOCIS "aggregava" i vecchi sistemi automatizzati e separati tra loro in oltre trenta archivi differenti, alcuni dei quali risalivano alla fine degli anni Sessanta o all'inizio degli anni Settanta. La Library of Congress ha pensato di scorporare e di collocare fuori dai confini dell'OPAC molto di quel materiale che prima veniva descritto dentro al catalogo. Tale materiale è accessibile dal sito Web della biblioteca in modo integrato all'OPAC: per esempio i vecchi Copyright files prodotti dal Copyright Office, che includono registrazioni bibliografiche e informazioni per documenti dal 1978 ad oggi, sono consultabili dal gruppo di pagine Web a disposizione sul sito, così come i documenti del Government Printing Office, quelli legislativi e le collezioni fotografiche sull'American Memory.Le registrazioni provenienti dagli archivi comprendenti materiale in Braille e audio sono raggiungibili dal Web-BNLD catalog sul sito LC del National Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Il catalogo comprende oltre 2700 volumi elettronici in Braille, recentemente posti in rete per utenti autorizzati all'accesso al National Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.Molti sono gli help in linea disponibili raggiungibili in modo trasversale da vari punti del catalogo e dalle varie modalità di ricerca o consultazione.È possibile accedere al nuovo OPAC, oltre che da WebVoyager, anche via Z39.50 in due modalità, semplice (parole chiave) e avanzata (con utilizzo di operatori booleani), e in modalità solo testuale (ASCII) di tipo telnet.Le possibilità di ricerca e browsing offerte dal nuovo OPAC Web sono varie: Subject Browse, Name Browse, Title, Serial Title, Call Number Browse, Guided Keyword, Command Keyword, Keyword, raggruppate in quattro modalità: Subject-Name-Title-Call#, Guided Keyword, Command Keyword, Keyword. Quattro le scelte possibili per la visualizzazione delle registrazioni: Brief Record, Subject/Content, Full Record, MARC Tag.Varie le funzionalità disponibili che fanno del nuovo OPAC uno strumento flessibile e raffinato: Limiting Searches, Search History, Boolean Searching, con offerta di un insieme di strumenti completo per il raffinamento della ricerca, incluso l'utilizzo di operatori booleani AND e OR, la possibilità di utilizzare codici specifici per la ricerca negli indici, l'utilizzo di vari filtri per la limitazione della ricerca e un potente sistema di relevance ranking per la valutazione di rilevanza dei dati recuperati.È possibile stampare, salvare o inviare in casella postale elettronica copie delle registrazioni catalografiche, sia una alla volta sia per insiemi.
2011 has been a "rose" year for Open Access all over the world, as both the green and the gold ways met with great successes. Due to its social pervasiveness, Open Access is gaining ground within alternative economies and is opening new paths inside the social environment. In 2011 it was increasingly used for support and humanitarian aids worldwide, and acting as a real catalyst for information it involved people and cultures within the social media and the social networks. Its current ramifications are having great impact in the evolution of other open movements like the Open-Data movement, the e-Science's communities, the Open Education Resources (OER) and of newest and fascinating models of modern pedagogy like the so-called Massively Open Courses (MOOC), open online online university courses focused on open access and targeted to the masses. Nevertheless, due to the way scientific communication used to work until a few years ago, there are still a few critical points like the necessity to identify sustainable economic models for scientific publishing, and to find a proper rights' management model together with the consequent allocation of profits within the value chain. Thus, the projects of the Digital Innovation and the policy choices within the research programs of the Commission and the European Union will be strategic in promoting open access in the sense of open innovation, and in working out several critical issues. ; Il 2011 è stato un anno "rosa" per l'Open Access a livello internazionale, con dati di crescita più che confortanti: la via verde e la via d'oro si sono costellate di grandi successi. L'OA, grazie alla sua pervasività sociale, si sta muovendo verso economie alternative e si sta creando nuovi percorsi e nuovi spazi dentro l'ambiente sociale. Sempre più usato nel mondo per scopi di supporto e aiuto umanitario, sta coinvolgendo persone e culture entro social media e social network, agendo come un vero e proprio catalizzatore informativo. Le ramificazioni dell'OA stanno avendo ad oggi grande impatto nell'evoluzione di altri movimenti "open": dall'OpenData alle comunità e-Science, dalle Open Education Resources (OER) ai modelli di pedagogia aperta, nel quadro dell'affascinante mondo dei cosiddetti Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC), i corsi universitari online a libero accesso e rivolti alle masse. Tuttavia permangono alcune criticità, retaggio di meccanismi insiti nei processi di comunicazione scientifica, in primis l'individuazione e la sostenibilità di modelli economici per l'editoria scientifica, la gestione corretta dei diritti e la conseguente allocazione dei profitti entro la catena di valore. Le implicazioni nelle scelte politiche entro i programmi di ricerca della Commissione Europea e i progetti dell'Agenda digitale e dell'Unione dell'Innovazione saranno determinanti nel promuovere l'accesso aperto nel senso di open innovation, e nella risoluzione dei nodi critici.
2011 has been a "rose" year for Open Access all over the world, as both the green and the gold ways met with great successes. Due to its social pervasiveness, Open Access is gaining ground within alternative economies and is opening new paths inside the social environment. In 2011 it was increasingly used for support and humanitarian aids worldwide, and acting as a real catalyst for information it involved people and cultures within the social media and the social networks. Its current ramifications are having great impact in the evolution of other open movements like the Open- Data movement, the e-Science's communities, the Open Education Resources (OER) and of newest and fascinating models of modern pedagogy like the so-called Massively Open Courses (MOOC), open online online university courses focused on open access and targeted to the masses. Nevertheless, due to the way scientific communication used to work until a few years ago, there are still a few critical points like the necessity to identify sustainable economic models for scientific publishing, and to find a proper rights' management model together with the consequent allocation of profits within the value chain. Thus, the projects of the Digital Innovation and the policy choices within the research programs of the Commission and the European Union will be strategic in promoting open access in the sense of open innovation, and in working out several critical issues.
[English]: In the last years, institutional repositories of preprints and scholarly publications have become a peak experience in the digital library environment, enabling the involvement of authors and scientific communities in a free and shared access to the results of research, and to its circulation trough the web. This volume collects a series of essays, both published and unpublished, that Antonella De Robbio wrote with respect to the issue of scientific information, and to the reply given by the Open Access Movement (OAI). The collection aims to a double purpose: first, to fill the gap in the lacking Italian bibliography concerning Open Archives; second, to take stock of the difficult situation of the Open Access Movement, and of the hope of its advocates that this movement could promote a democratic and immediate circulation of scientific knowledge./ [Italiano]: Negli ultimi anni, i depositi istituzionali di preprint e di pubblicazioni scientifiche (Open Archive) sono diventati tra le esperienze di punta della biblioteca digitale, favorendo il coinvolgimento degli autori e delle diverse comunità scientifiche nella diffusione in rete e nell'accesso libero e condiviso ai risultati della ricerca. In questo volume vengono raccolti alcuni saggi, editi e inediti, che Antonella De Robbio ha dedicato al problema dell'informazione scientifica e alla risposta che ad esso ha dato il movimento per l'accesso aperto. La raccolta si propone un duplice obiettivo: da un lato, di colmare una lacuna nel panorama della carente bibliografia italiana sugli Archivi aperti; dall'altro, di fare il punto della situazione sulla delicata questione del movimento Open Access e della speranza nutrita dai suoi sostenitori che esso possa promuovere la diffusione democratica e tempestiva delle conoscenze scientifiche. /[ENGLISH] In the last years, institutional repositories of preprints and scholarly publications have become a peak experience in the digital library environment, enabling the involvement of authors and scientific communities in a free and shared access to the results of research, and to its circulation trough the web. This volume collects a series of essays, both published and unpublished, that Antonella De Robbio wrote with respect to the issue of scientific information, and to the reply given by the Open Access Movement (OAI). The collection aims to a double purpose: first, to fill the gap in the lacking Italian bibliography concerning Open Archives; second, to take stock of the difficult situation of the Open Access Movement, and of the hope of its advocates that this movement could promote a democratic and immediate circulation of scientific knowledge.
