Peter Levine, What Should be the Role of Government-Supported Medical websites?Libres, September 2004. Abstract: "The National Library of Medicine produces websites for the general public that are supposed to meet official standards of scientific rigor. These sites exist in the context of the World Wide Web, where anyone is able to make claims about medical science and recommend treatment. Medical sites that are sponsored or endorsed by the government are not especially prominent online. For those who trust the medical profession, the failure of the official sites to draw the lion's share of public attention is a problem, and government medical sites should be more aggressively promoted. However, the official sites have provoked controversy and criticism. Those who are skeptical of the 'medical establishment' may welcome the pluralism and diversity of views available on the Internet; they may oppose efforts to channel viewers to official sites. This paper argues in favor of the government-sponsored sites, but with some caveats." (PS: Open access to NIH-funded research will definitely make this high-quality body of literature more visible and easier for researchers and lay readers alike to find, retrieve, and read.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/25/2004 08:58:00 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.
