Late last Friday, a Republican senator introduced two amendments aiming to sabotage the open access provision. One would eliminate it entirely, the other would simply gut it.
Who is this man who would deny Americans access to the research that their tax dollars fund? A man scientists everywhere already love to hate: Oklahoma's James Inhofe, better known across the world as the politician most dedicated to preventing the United States from addressing the challenges of climate change; a man famous for calling global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
The straightforward explanation for Inhofe's meddling is that he is doing the bidding of the publisher's lobby. But I think there's a more insidious strategy at play. Restricting access to peer-reviewed research makes it harder for the general public to get their hands on the state-of-the-art research documenting how human activity is causing global warming. Crafty, Sen. Inhofe, very crafty!
Comments. Note that Leonard's piece came out before last night's historic vote. Inhofe withdrew his anti-OA amendments earlier in the day and as a result the bill passed with the OA mandate for the NIH intact. However, Inhofe did file a "colloquy" (statement for the record to be included as part of the legislative history) objecting to the NIH provision and asking the House-Senate conference committee to reconsider it. We should have the text of the colloquy later today.
Update. Also see Leonard's follow-up on Elsevier's financial contributions to Inhofe.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/24/2007 08:48:00 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.
