Emory Free Culture

March 17, 2007

Resolution in Support of the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006

Filed under: Events

I’ve been remiss in posting about the Open Access Rally. Attendance was low, and the newspaper photographer backed out at the last minute. We hope to present the resolution below to the new SGA legislature soon.

TITLE:

Resolution in Support of the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006

AUTHOR:

Brian Pitts

WHEREAS,

writing research papers is an essential feature of the curriculum of many Emory University courses; and

WHEREAS,

such assignments require access to articles published in academic journals; and

WHEREAS,

student access to scholarly literature is primarily provided by subscriptions through university libraries; and

WHEREAS,

U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) introduced Senate Bill 2695, the Federal Research Public Access Act, on May 2, 2006; and

WHEREAS,

the Federal Research Public Access Act is awaiting reintroduction in the 110th Congress; and

WHEREAS,

the Federal Research Public Access Act would require that U.S. government agencies with annual extramural research expenditures of over $100 million make manuscripts of journal articles stemming from research funded by that agency publicly available via the Internet no later than six months after its publication in a peer-reviewed journal; and

WHEREAS,

the U.S. government invests more than $55 billion in research annually, resulting in thousands of journal articles published annually; and

WHEREAS,

this legislation will mean enhanced access to federally-funded research articles for researchers and students, according to the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition; and

WHEREAS,

Emory University libraries support this policy through their membership in the Alliance for Taxpayer Access; then

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the students of the Emory University urge the Administration to publicly support the Federal Research Public Access Act and access to academic research; and

THEREFORE, BE IT FUTHER RESOLVED that the students of the Emory University urge the student governments of other universities to do likewise; and

THEREFORE, BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the students of the Emory University urge the U.S. Congress to pass the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006.

February 14, 2007

Open Access Rally

Filed under: Events

It’s time for taxpayers to have access to government funded research!

JOIN IN

National Day of Action For Access to Publicly Funded Research

RALLY

Thursday, February 15, 2007

4:30pm, Woodruff Library North Entrance

Government grants account for fully half of the output from university-based researchers and scholars in the U.S. In biology and biomedical-related disciplines alone – for example – the National Institutes of Health fund research that result in a tremendous 65,000 academic articles each year.

Yet: even though taxpayer money funds this research, the resulting articles are often published in journals to which many libraries cannot afford to subscribe.

Many organizations have been working together to change this. For example, there were two initiatives presented to the 109th U.S. Congress designed to make the results of federally funded research publicly available that will likely be reconsidered this year: the NIH Public Access Policy and the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA). These initiatives focus on removing access barriers by making the peer-reviewed results of taxpayer-funded research available online for no extra charge to the American public - including researchers, teachers, and students.

Learn more at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/students/

October 4, 2006

Atlanta Apple Store Action

Filed under: Events

The photographer from the Wheel missed the carpool, but Chris used his cameraphone to document our adventure.

We started out inside the store.

And ended up leaving the mall.

But not until we gave the very apologetic security guard a flyer and sticker. See the full set on flickr.

September 29, 2006

Day against DRM

Filed under: Events

After June 10th the Apple Store at Lenox Mall thought they were safe.
They were wrong. Join Emory Free Culture and other anti-DRM activists as
we educate the public about the dangers of DRM using the iTunes Music
Store as our case study. Sign up to receive the details on when and
where to meet. Supplies and a photographer are already arranged.

http://defectivebydesign.org/en/actions/oct3/atlanta_apple_store

September 22, 2006

September CopyNight

Filed under: Events

After a summer hiatus, CopyNight Atlanta is ready to resume Tuesday,
September 26th at 7:00 pm at the Starbucks Coffee at 1569 N. Decatur Rd
NE. We’ll be discussing the Copyright Modernization Act of 2006
(http://ipaction.org/campaigns/cma/) and planning a local action for the
Free Software Foundation’s October 3rd Day Against DRM
(http://defectivebydesign.org/en/blog/announce_day_against_drm).

Anyone who is interested in future announcements should join the
(low-traffic) CopyNight Atlanta mailing list at
http://copynight.org/locations.html#atl

Don’t miss out!

September 19, 2006

SFD06 Report

Filed under: Events

Software Freedom Day 2006 was a great success for Emory Free Culture. We distributed nearly 50 CDs and flyers and signed up several new members. More details and pictures are available at the SFD wiki, and the files that went into our CD for Windows can be downloaded here.

September 15, 2006

Emory University Students Promote Software Freedom

Filed under: Events

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Emory University Students Promote Software Freedom

Atlanta, Ga – On September 15 from 10AM to 2PM on the main floor of the Dobbs University Center, the student group Emory Free Culture will host a display as part of Software Freedom Day. Software Freedom Day is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software.

Free and Open source software is software that is developed collaboratively by developers across the globe. The software itself is available at little or no cost. The source code (the human-readable version of the software) is distributed with the executable form, giving users of the software the freedom to modify, adapt and improve the software to meet their needs. Because of this, free and open source is well known for its quality, reliability and security compared with proprietary software.

Software Freedom Day is primarily about Software, but Software Freedom can affect almost every aspect of our lives. Software Freedom enables governmental transparency and openness; for example, voting machines and government records can be examined and available to a degree that is impossible when proprietary secrecy stands in the way of public scrutiny. Software Freedom empowers non-profit organizations (such as libraries, schools, and religious organizations) and businesses (especially in developing countries) to compute with state-of-the-art software without the undue restrictions and costs imposed by proprietary software licensing. Software Freedom can provide a higher degree of security than is possible with proprietary software, because the artificial barrier of proprietary secrecy is not in place to keep security experts from contributing ideas, and it’s in those experts’ best interest to make sure the software is secure. Software Freedom has massive legal and economic benefits, and it ultimately empowers people on a local level to exercise enlightened self-interest concerning any area of life that involves software.

May 1, 2006

End of Semester Report

Filed under: Events

The meeting with Cattier on the 25th went very well. Although nothing certain can be said at this phase, AAIT’s plans for iTunesU seem to address the bulk of our concerns. Catttier is interested in working with us on increasing copyright/left awareness among students and bringing a speaker to campus next year. Also, AAIT is willing to take a look at the bittorrent issue if we compile a report documenting how the block harms students.

“Do the Wiki” was a success. We talked about the philosophy behind wikipedia, walked through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial , then each did some editing on our own.

Since no other nominations were received and no voting members objected, Brian will continue as president and Andrew will continue as treasurer.

Our end of semester report has been submitted to College Council.