Definizione di una policy per l'archivio istituzionale ISS

The paper aims at illustrating the actions taken by Istituto Superiore di Sanita (ISS) in favour of Open Access to scientific literature produced by the ISS research community. In 2005 the ISS launched a Project aimed at aggregating the biomedical resources (mainly scientific publications) produced by Italian research institutions. The first step was to raise OA awareness among ISS research staff. To this end and in order to track authors’ attitudes to OA issues, an internal survey was carried out to identify researchers’ opinions towards the publication and distribution of academic material, following both the traditional and OA models. The essential results of the survey will be commented on, mostly in regards to the kind of material to be deposited in the ISS digital archive. In order to comply fully with the principles of the open access movement, the President of ISS signed the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities". This is a milestone on the road to further declarations in favour of OA by national and international scientific organisations. Up to November 2006, there were 183 signatories including 70 Italian institutions, mostly universities. This initiative represents a stimulus for the Institute to define an internal policy in accordance with the philosophy of free access to research results. To this end, an open-source software (DSpace) has been implemented at the ISS and initially uploaded with data sourced from a bibliographic database that assembles internal scientific publications. In order to get the ISS research staff fully aware of the benefits of open access to research output, the opinions of some pilot researchers about depositing scientific material in the ISS institutional repository have been collected. Staff expectations have been considered together with the bulk of the recommendations stated in a document to enhance the practice of selfarchiving to be supported by the ISS President.