berlin 5: Open Data: What am I going to say?

I’m talking tomorrow on “Open Data” at the Berlin 5 conference on Open Access. (see this WP page for most of the terminology) This is the fifth annual meeting in the series – the first signed the actual declaration (Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities ). It’s a mixture of activist, librarians, publishers (mainly OA, but a ?brave delegate from Elsevier is here), NGOs, funders, learned bodies, etc. Some people I have bumped into already:

• Subbiah Arunachalam (WP). A tireless campaigner for Open Access. I am fixing up to visit India to visit him and other scientists who are interested in Open Access, chemistry, crystallography and Open Data. We hope to involve the EU-Indiagrid project. This is so important it requires separate posts.
• Alma Swan – who is coordinating the UK RIN project on access to data. Alma led several of us to dinner last nigh. I ended up sharing too much of a litre of red wine (after the sparklin wine at the reception). (Why do I write this detail – my family only knows what I am doing through my blog…)
• Kaitlin Thaney (Science Commons). SC is one of the key tools that will be essential (but not sufficient) if we are to liberate data.
• Susanna Mornati who has put the conference together. Susanna has agreed that we should be able to record my talk. That changes what I say and how I say it.

and there are others I need to meet – Maxine Clarke who is speaking in the same session in the session and haven’t yet bumped into – we should have a drink together – I am in the second row stage right, Maxine
So what do I say? I’m very glad this will be recorded as it will reach a wider audience. As I have already blogged I have ca 10,000 slides and I don’t leave a conventional P*w*rP**nt presentation. I’ll leave a lot on my blog, I hope.
And, seriously, until I have heard the other presentations I don’t know what slant to take? What is the role of developing nations? Of funders? Of NGOs – progress is often slow. Do people understand how important data is, and how poorly, at the moment, it is managed by publishers and Open Access? Do I suggest new practices? [Yes, I shall think of them during the talks.]
I shan’t blog everything – Fred Friend is introducing the great and the good of OA, including some of the original signatories, so I’ll stop here.