Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, May 05, 2006

Waiting for the AAP to say more about the FRPAA

Barbara Fister, Public Funding = Public Access, ACRLog, May 4, 2006. Excerpt:
Another bill has been introduced in Congress to make publicly-funded research publicly available. The Washington post coverage portrays this as a rebuke to the lame response thus far to the NIH’s voluntary depository program. It also expands the domain of funded research beyond the biomedical sciences....Peter Suber mentions in his blog the bill’s three chief strengths: it makes open access a requirement, it has a six-month deadline, and does not rely on publisher consent. Needless to say the Association of American Publishers is not happy, but they’re not as quick to update their website as Peter Suber is so, as of this writing, you’ll have to take the Post’s word for it.

PS: Pat Schroeder, President and CEO of the AAP, has weighed in on the bill (the FRPAA) and was quoted in the Washington Post story. But she focused on the cost of conducting peer review and didn't draw the connection to the merits of the FRPAA. If she did, she'd have to argue that the FRPAA would undermine subscriptions at peer-reviewed journals, for which there is fear and speculation but no evidence. So far, the AAP strategy seems to be to make solid but irrelevant claims rather than relevant but unsubstantiated claims.