WebProNews

We've written about Google drawing universities' books, bit by bit, out into the open - that's what the Google Books Library Project is all about.  Harvard's charging ahead in a slightly different area, though, with its move to make research available online for free.

Yes, we know, Harvard research may be even less interesting to you than ancient Japanese manuscripts; it could be dry reading, as opposed to interesting symbols on dusty papers.  Still, the spread of such research for free - whereas it is usually only available through pricy subscription journals - is an important thing.

Building up to the big announcement, Peter Suber wrote, "Harvard will be the first university in the US to adopt an OA [open access] mandate.  The Harvard policy will also be one of the first anywhere to be adopted by faculty themselves rather than by administrators."

Harvard is, in case you didn't know, on a pretty high pedestal, so publishers won't really be able to say "no" to the move.  Also, the development is the sort of thing that other universities are liable to imitate.

On a final note, Harvard is, by the way, already a partner within the Google Books Library Project.