Open and Shut?: Open Access in Poland: Interview with Bożena Bednarek-Michalska

Use the link to access the interview.  An excerpt from the introduction reads as follows: "While conducting the interview below with Bednarek-Michalska three things struck me as noteworthy about the current state of Open Access (OA) in Poland. First, Bednarek-Michalska reports that access to research information in Poland is 'not bad'. In light of Harvard University’s 2012 Memorandum arguing that subscription-based scholarly publishing is now 'fiscally unsustainable' this is striking. Harvard is the world’s wealthiest university. If Harvard is struggling, why are Polish universities not struggling too?  ... The second thing to strike me in talking to Bednarek-Michalska was that, unlike most journals published in Western Europe and North America, Polish journals are not viewed as a source of revenue ... Third, it would appear that activists in Poland tend to view OA as just one component of a much broader movement for openness ... This broader approach is reflected in a new draft bill called the 'Act on Open Public Resources'. If the bill were to become a reality it would apply to all publicly-funded scientific, educational and cultural resources. That is, it would cover not just scholarly papers and scientific data, but (where they were publicly-funded, or produced by a  public institution) 'maps and plans, photographs, films and microfilms, audio and video recordings, opinions, analysis, reports and other works and subject-matter of related rights in the meaning of the law of 1994 on copyright and related rights, as well as databases in the meaning of the law of 2001 on the legal protection of databases.' (As translated by Tomasz Targosz of Jagiellonian University) ..."