From: "[log in to unmask]" Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:19:05 +0000 Recommandations de la Commission européenne en matière d’Open Access : premières observations du GFII MODERATOR'S NOTE: GFII, an association for the information industry in France, has issued a press release commenting on European Commission recommendations regarding open access. The full press release is in French only and may be found at: http://www.gfii.fr/fr/presse/recommandations-de-la-commission-europeenne-en-matiere-d-open-access-premieres-observations-du-gfii Here we append a rough-and-ready translation of the first paragraphs. The document goes on with a list of issues that GFII believes should be addressed in developing a French response to the EC recommendations. Ann Okerson, liblicense-l moderator ************************* Recommendations of the European Commission on Open Access - initial observations from GFII Press Release of Friday, January 11, 2013 11/01/2013 -- On 17 July 2012, the European Commission issued a recommendation that the Member States to take the necessary steps to deliver open access publications resulting from research funded with public funds, as soon as possible, preferably immediately, and in any event, no later than 6 to 12 months after publication according to the disciplines. The French authorities should therefore soon take a position on this issue. It is in this context that the GFII, a multidisciplinary group bringing together public and private sector actors involved in the industry of information and knowledge, wishes to inform the public of the first conclusions reached by the Working Group Open Access. GFII shares the conviction that publications that are results of research work should be disseminated as openly and as quickly as possible, both in the interests of authors and in the interest of the institutions to which they belong, in readers' interest and that of society as a whole. But the group points out that publishing a scientific text, whether in the humanities and social sciences (SHS) or in scientific, technical and medical (STM), it is not the only issue, especially in the digital environment. Editing scientific texts requires they be selected, improved and their information validated through regular communication with the authors, proofread, formatted, printed if appropriate or provided "on-line" and indexed in a sustainable manner on platforms with high added value, while enriching metadata, developing tools to facilitate research through databases, publicizing and promoting authors and their works, etc.. Many of these activities and services to the scientific community have a cost and it is therefore necessary the cost be met. The issue of Open Access is therefore balancing the widest possible dissemination of publications from the work of researchers and the existence of economic models for real editing work and the promotion of scientific texts for all their potential readers. Without a balance between these objectives, the risk exists of severely destabilizing the scientific information sector. ####