Librarians, Open Access Advocates ‘Vehemently Oppose’ Research Works Act is a great post on the response to HR 3699. There has been a huge response to this act in Twitter and the blog-o-sphere.

Richard Poynder has written about whether presses that are members of AAP can stay neutral in the debate over the bill.

On Jan 3, ExtremeTech reported that major websites like Google and Amazon were considering going black in protest of SOPA and the Atlantic posted about Reddit’s decision to go black on Jan 18.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the closure of a government biodiversity program (and invaluable database) due to budget cuts.

As one of many Google Reader users who are not fans of the new version, Alicia764 blogs about how changes designed to force people to use Google+ have broken a tool she relied on as a solo-librarian.

Blogging right into 2012…

• A new study looks at survival disparities based on patient’s Medicaid status. Read about it in The Washington Post and Cancer. 
• There is a lot of news on recent challenges to Open Access in Congress. See these items in The Atlantic, on Wired Science Blogs, and Scholarly Kitchen. No doubt there will be more on this issue coming soon!
• However…there is an extension on the government’s call for comments on public access to digital data from federally funded research. Please comment by the 12th of January!
• Several BMJ studies have found that unpublished info in medicine may bias evidence-based information.  See this opinion from Scientific American’s Observations blog and this item in Forbes .
• Michelle Kraft blogged about a new forum for Medical Librarians to discuss mobile devices and apps at KraftyLibrarian.

The blogs are abuzz with the sound of…

• Recent studies found patients want access to their doctor’s notes. Shots, NPR’s Health Blog, has this coverage of the story, and here is iHealthBeat’s take.
• ‘Tis the season for year-end lists, such as the PNAS‘ Top Stories of 2011, The Scientist’s Top Science Scandals of 2011, and ASCO’s report on Clinical Cancer Advances for 2011.
• Along those lines, Laika’s MedLibLog has an interesting post about the latest version of Jeffery Beall’s List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers, 2012 Edition.
• The Scholarly Communications Update from Becker Medical Library mentions last week’s article proposing a “twimpact” factor where analysis of tweets predicted highly cited articles.
• ScienceInsider writes that, in response to a request made by a US government biosecurity advisory board, Grudgingly, Virologists Agree to Redact Details of Sensitive Flu Papers. Over at NatureNews, scientists call for stricter controls as as Fears Grow Over Lab Bred Flu.