# Open Access in Latin America/Ewout ter Haar

   * Around 2004, as a natural progression from my interest in open source. Also the XXX preprint archive was relatively well-known among physicists (although not so much among condensed matter physicists, as I was then).
   * A relatively well-informed by-stander, who very occasionally does outreach activities among colleagues.
   * We are talking about OA to the scientific literature, right? In that case, OA for me is free, over the internet, with no requirement for open licensing.
   * Neither: my preferred model is the Brazilian Scielo model: state financed OA jornal platforms, preferably combined with institutional repositories. Private enterprises may have some role in scientific communication, but the long term preservation and dissemination infrastructure should be provided by public means.
   * Not OA to the scientific literature. But in my job I provide web-based tools with the aim for academics to experiment with new communication platforms.
   * In physics, there is a lot of pressure to publish in high-status, usually american or european jornals. In education research, people publish in conferences. There is little pressure to publish in OA venues, but no big objections too.
   * I think initiatives have failed because of lack of interest from politicians in the executive branch, which in turn may be explained by lack of general interest and maybe the publishers lobby. But mostly, I think there is no sense of urgency in society as a whole.
   * Well, there is now a deposit mandate at USP, but it still needs to be implemented and widely adopted. The federal-level deposit mandate for theses were very successful.
   * They have a fundamental role in OA to the scientific literature, since almost all of it is produced by them. They should have institutional deposit mandates and give incentives to publish in OA jornals.
* What is the role of Libraries in OA in Brazil, and what should that role be in order to foster OA?
* Who do you consider the main allies of OA in Brazil?
   * Scientists, teachers
   * Publishers
   * USP has a budget of 4 bi. The three state universities together have about 8 or 9 bi. I think the state universities of SP are responsible for most (maybe half?) of the research output in Brazil, so I guess the number I would guess is about 10 - 20 bi for brazil as a whole. Still, the question is ill-posed. What do you mean by "public research"? Meteorological institutes, aero-spacial industry (for example) would count?
   * They should set policies, in particular ,OA policies.
   * General awareness of the logic of OA and the perverseness of the current publisher-led system.
* Is there a supporting community for OA in Brazil?
* What were/are the main community driven activities or manifestos prol OA n Brazil?
* Is there technical structure supporting OA flourishing in Brazil? Is there attention to open standards and interoperability standards for a repository infrastructure?
   * Open source is strong in Brazil. Likewise, among TI specialist that I am aware of, Open standards, open source etc. has high status. I don't know of any proprietary repository software used here. This is not the case for library software though, where commercial offerings are still the norm.
   * I don't really know of any scientific publishers in Brazil (as opposed to educational publishers). But the societies I know about are not OA friendly. Just now, the physics society (SBF) "sold" their flagship jornal to Springer. The argument is "quality" and the perception that commercial publishers have more status.
   * To do their job using OA principles. First of all, to do their job, as best they can. And do this, using OA principles.