Barbara Quint, NIH Requires Open Access for Its Funded Medical Research, Information Today, September 13, 2004. Excerpt: "After months --if not years, seen from a historical perspective-- of dispute, the National Institutes of Health has established a policy mandating open access to the full text of research results from projects it funds. Conservative estimates have placed at least a quarter of the quality medical research done in the world as funded by NIH grants and contracts. Current estimates place the number of documents affected by the new policy as around 60,000 items each year. Before coming to this decision, the NIH heard from all the many stakeholders --publishers, abstracting and indexing services, authors, disease-specific advocacy groups, librarians, etc. The final push came from the prodding of the subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations that controls NIH's budget. With the posting of the notice on Sept. 3, a 60-day period began for public comment. Revisions may ensue at the end of that period, but the policy should go into effect before the end of the year. All the material will end up deposited at PubMed Central....With the NIH's decision, the fast-paced open access movement has picked up even more momentum. Already, other federal information professionals are speaking about pressing for open access in the physical sciences as well as the life sciences. One interesting aspect of the NIH development, though Congress pressed for the move --the NIH did not require statutory action to implement the policy, just a change in the boilerplate conditions of grants and contracts. This means other major federal research and development funding agencies could also establish open access policies without bothering Congress. They might even want to move before Congress starts bothering them. "
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/13/2004 09:34:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
