Something of an Open Access breakthrough is happening in the world of archaeology.

Open Access News reports that the APA/AIA have recently issued a report that takes into account open access recommendations made by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)(blogged about here).

The extended excerpt reported by Open Access News shows that the APA/AIA report makes some important moves toward recognizing the value of open access. The report also notes increased barriers to scholarship created by the recent expansion of copyright restrictions. While this is an important observation, the APA/AIA report should also have recommended Creative Commons licenses as a strategy for unlocking scholarly materials from overly restrictive copyright. Given that the ACLS report suggested use of Creative Commons licenses (page 45), I am a little bit puzzled about this omission in the APA/AIA report.

Beyond licencing, the APA/AIA has some good language about interoperability (including a discussion of the OpenURL standard, related to the COinS standard discussed here). Additional discussion about the need for data sharing and longevity is also in the report (page 4).

The discussion about the “Digital Monograph Series” (pages 9-10) is also of interest to DDIG members. It noted that there is still a great deal of skepticism about publishing with digital media. Though, I wonder how quickly this may be changing given the growing amount of activity seen in the world of digital scholarship. Nevertheless, the report recognizes the need for dissemination mechanisms and calls for a new publication series “for works that would be improved through the digital medium”. Databases and the like would be included in this.

And there is much more, plus a discussion of this report (while it was in draft form) over at the Stoa Consortium. Don’t miss the comments by Greg Crane (Editor in Chief of the Perseus Digital Library), which (I believe) rightly emphasize how the “…center of gravity for intellectual life in academia and society as a whole has already shifted decisively to a digital environment.”

Nevertheless, the seriousness and interest in Open Access frameworks shown in this report is significant news, especially because it comes from a scholarly society. What a marked point of contrast from the very counter-productive approach taken by AAA! The APA/AIA report is well worth reading by archaeologists, including the leadership of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA).