Martin Frank, Executive Director of the American Physiological Society, has publicly released the September 8 letter he wrote to Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), both of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor-HHS. The letter urges the Senators to "to halt the NIH's current efforts to develop a government-run distribution center for scientific research articles." Frank makes the familiar argument that the NIH plan will threaten subscription-based journals. (PS reply.) In this letter he makes the additional argument that the general public already has free online access to some medical information, which is true but beside the point. On the question whether the public should have access to all taxpayer-funded research, Frank changes course and argues that the NIH only funds a fraction of it, as if that were a reason to withhold the NIH-funded portion rather than a reason to provide it and then keep working to provide more. A few other arguments from the letter: "[I]t is not in the best interests of science to place a government agency in the position of gatekeeper for public access to research." (PS: True, but only if the government would close the gate. In this case the government would open the gate. Frank would prefer to give private-sector publishers the right to keep the gate closed, even to publicly-funded research.) "The advent of the Internet makes it easier to disseminate information, but it does not eliminate the costs of publishing." (True but a red herring for two different reasons: first, no OA advocate has ever said that publishing is costless, and second, the NIH plan is about OA archiving, not OA publishing.) The letter is co-signed by a large number of society publishers, most of whom also signed the DC Principles for Free Access to Science.
(PS: If you are a U.S. citizen who supports open access, it's more important than ever to take action. If you are from Iowa, contact Sen. Tom Harkin's office. If you are from Pennsylvania, contact Sen. Arlen Specter's office. They are the ranking members of the Senate committee that will consider the NIH plan, if any Senate committee considers it. If you are from another state, then contact your Senators. If you represent a U.S.-based organization, then join the Alliance for Taxpayer Access and let the ATA use your name to continue this fight. If you are a scientist who belongs to a scientific society that signed Frank's letter, then make it known that the society does not speak for you and that you don't appreciate it putting its publishing mission ahead of its research mission and the interests of its members.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/10/2004 03:33:00 PM.
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.
