Open Access: Trends and Strategies after Berlin5

Abstract

Universities Association) observed in the opening keynote speech. The conference offered an overview of current practices, focused on critical issues and contributed suggestions for future viable pathways. In particular, the main topics under discussion have been:• access to digital resources with respect both to legal and technical issues;• sustainability of OA business models;• quality both in terms of content validation through peer-review and digital long-term preservation; • impact of OA on research practices: e-science, data sharing;• varieties of OA: there is no single solution, but rather many community-oriented strategies and tools . After the welcome addresses on Wednesday, 19 th , Sijbolt Noorda introduced the debate about the challenges of OA and the possibilities to achieve a win-win solution suitable for all the stakeholders participating in the scholarly communication process, suggesting that the complexity of the research community -what makes sense for historians it does not for engineers -must be treasured and must be taken into account if we want that the OA model is accepted. Noorda also pointed to the potentiality of digital technologies, that should offer much more than a mere surrogate of the traditional way of publishing.In the first session of the second day, Status Report by signatories, speakers representative of research institutions from all over the world which signed the Berlin Declaration illustrated the projects and the state of the art of OA initiatives in their countries: Fred Friend (JISC, UK) presented the deep commitment and support of British institutions to the OA choice, the mandatory policies of the funding agencies, and new projects like the "Copyright knowledge base", to implement the RoMEO/SHERPA database. Jens Vigens (CERN), talking about the CERN experience, pointed out that a mandatory policy is not enough and researchers should be offered services and incentives. Roberto delle Donne showed the work in progress supported by the Italian Conference of University Rectors in order to raise awareness among Italian researches, and provide guidelines and best practices. Subbiah Arunachalam presented the strenghts and weaknesses of the Indian experience, while Hiroya Takeuchi gave a survey of the early steps of OA in Japan, after a long silence.1 Papers can be searched on the conference website, at http://www.aepic.it/conf/papers.php?cf=10.