Who would have thought that academics might be opposed to the dissemination of information? A recently proposed congressional act, the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, would require certain government agencies to publish online any articles containing research funded by public grants. It has been met with some hostility among the management of scholarly journals whose income depends upon the selling power of these articles.
Were this bill to be passed, any article published in an applicable scholarly journal would have to be made available electronically (free of charge) within six months. Obviously, this doesn't sit particularly well with editors and producers of such journals; their argument is that free online publication of their articles would reduce their subscriptions and, hence, their ability to sell advertising space....The problem is that the content these publications are hawking has been funded by taxpayer money. Journals provide a means of editing, condensing and digesting the immense amount of research published every year -- but to charge the taxpayer twice is unfair....
We think an act of Congress is appropriate....[I]t makes little sense for a taxpayer to have to purchase a subscription to read the fruit of his or her own tax dollars. In our opinion, it does not sound too harsh to say "make the research available or find private funding."
PS: This is the first discussion of FRPAA I've seen in a student paper. Kudos to the editors for covering it and for their sensible endorsement. Just one small correction: The OA requirement wouldn't depend on the journal publishing the research but on the agency funding the research.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/25/2006 11:10:00 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.
