Stuart M. Shieber, a professor of computer science at Harvard who proposed the new policy, said after the vote in a news release that the decision “should be a very powerful message to the academic community that we want and should have more control over how our work is used and disseminated.”

I’m thrilled at this. Obviously. But I’m also thrilled that in conducting the search to find this out, I came across a couple of blogs I need to add to my RSS reader:

• Derivative Work- the blog of copyright and information law attorney (and feminist science fiction fan! Yay!) Laura Quilter. You know you’re getting to be a real open media geek when you find yourself becoming a fangirl to people who specialize in copyright law.
• The Web Difference- A class blog for Harvard Law’s “The Web Difference” (2008) by different profs, as far as I can tell (the About page is the classic WP default).
• JoHoTheBlog- Writer and marketing consultant David Weinberger’s blog.

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Turns out that the NY Times is reporting the Harvard Arts and Sciences faculty will be voting today on whether to make their journals open access on the web. The debate is, of course, that publishing on the web diminishes strict peer review and reduces income, but on the other hand, the journals are quite expensive with a small subscriber base.

“In place of a closed, privileged and costly system, it will help open up the world of learning to everyone who wants to learn,” said Robert Darnton, director of the university library. “It will be a first step toward freeing scholarship from the stranglehold of commercial publishers by making it freely available on our own university repository.”

I think it all depends on whether the faculty views their work as strides forward in knowledge or a commodity to line their pockets. And don’t get me wrong; I’ve worked in the RPG industry, I know all about people trying to get you to do work for free or a pittance “for the love.” But there’s nothing in this article that says journals will cease publication, and the author of the work is free to opt-out of making their work available.

Come on academia, make the right choice! *crosses fingers*

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