The Public Library of Science has issued a press release on the new NIH public-access policy. Excerpt: 'While NIH's Public Access Policy could, and PLoS believes should, have been stronger in several respects, it sets an important precedent for all sponsors of scientific research. "The US government has now endorsed the principle that the results of federally funded research should be freely available to the public," said Michael B. Eisen, Ph.D., co-founder of PLoS. "Scientists and the scientific community now have an historic opportunity make this principle a reality." PLoS urges all other funding agencies, in the US and abroad, to adopt the progressive components of the NIH policy, and to accompany them with stronger incentives for compliance and shorter periods of allowable delay prior to public access. PLoS urges all scientists to seize this opportunity to ensure that their works are made freely available to their colleagues and the public....PLoS commends NIH's commitment to establish a Public Access Advisory Working Group, also announced today, which will serve to monitor the implementation and effects of the new policy over the coming months and years. PLoS, itself, will be collaborating with other interested organizations to design and provide tools to make it as easy as possible for authors to exercise their vested authority to make their works freely available online as soon after publication as they see fit, as NIH has urged them to. PLoS thanks NIH Director Elias Zerhouni for his leadership on this important issue, and looks forward to an ongoing dialogue on the imperatives for timely public access to the products of publicly funded scientific and medical research.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/04/2005 09:00:00 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.
