Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, February 22, 2007

DC Principles petition opposing FRPAA misses the target

The DC Principles Coalition has launched a petition in support of society publishers who oppose FRPAA (c. February 21, 2007).  Excerpt:

We, the undersigned, believe that our society supports the broad and timely dissemination of research findings through their journals while providing the financial resources needed to support the training and development of the next generation of scientists....

For these reasons, we the undersigned do not support Congressional efforts to mandate when journal access must be provided and thus undermine my society’s efforts to promote the development of the next generation of scientists and sustain innovative publishing.

Comments.

  1. FRPAA doesn't "mandate when journal access must be provided".  It mandates when access to the final version of the author's peer-reviewed manuscript must be provided through an OA repository.  If the publisher chooses, the journal's published version may remain behind a price barrier forever.  (If this is news to you, then see my Twelve reminders about FRPAA from earlier this month.)
  2. FRPAA may not "undermine my society’s efforts to promote" scholarship and scholars, for reasons I've often enumerated (for example yesterday).
  3. Hence, it's perfectly possible to sign this petition, support FRPAA, and oppose hypothetical "Congressional efforts" to force journal access and undermine societies. 
  4. If the plan is to present this petition to members of Congress, does the DC Principles Coalition really think that the members will not know what the bill says?