On the English Wikipedia, the entry about the Research Works Act that aims to roll back the NIH’s Public Access Policy is currently featured on the Main page under “Did you know” (bottom left in this screenshot):
… that the Research Works Act proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives would ban open access mandates for federally funded research?
Bottom left: Did you know - Research Works Act. Top right: In the news - Paedophryne amauensis
In the top right of the same page, Open Access is featured a second time: as reported on Wednesday, the smallest vertebrate known to date – the frog Paedophrynes amauensis, originally described in PLoS ONE on Tuesday - was featured in the news section on Wednesday. It is still there, albeit the image has been replaced by one of the cruise ship Costa Concordia that shipwrecked on Friday off the coast of Italy.
As far as I know, this is the first time that Open Access has been featured twice on the Main Page of the English Wikipedia (happy birthday, by the way!). As for coverage in other Wikipedias, Paedophryne amauensis is still featured – with image – on the Main Pages of the Thai, Bulgarian, Finnish and Norwegian Wikipedias. I am working on a more detailed report for the January issue of This month in GLAM.
Daniel Dietrich
Daniel Mietchen
Laura Newman
nilsdagssonmoskopp