Open Access News

Robin Peek, Oh the OA Drama of it All, Wikis@GSLIS, October 27, 2007.  A preprint of a forthcoming column for Information Today (like this one).  Excerpt:

The Open Access (OA) movement has all the makings of a good opera. The drama becomes heightened and looks like it is about to climax to a happy ending; some politician comes around and dampens the mood. Many eyes around the world have been waiting, with expectant breath to see if the U.S. Congress was going to give the OA world what it was hoping for - a mandate for OA for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). After the Appropriations bill came out of the joint House-Senate Committee last spring it seemed like OA may be on its ways to [achieving] what has been discussed for years - a [deposit] requirement for all NIH funded research....

The White House became a surprise player in OA when they issued the White House Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) threatening to veto the bill in its current form. As noted in my September column, the administration opposed S.1710 because it included “irresponsible and excessive level of spending and includes other objectionable provisions” ...

However, the Administration Policy also noted that the publishing lobby had managed to reach the White House....

Sen. James Inhofe drafted two amendments to the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill that affect the NIH open access mandate. Amendment 3416 would make provision to maintain the NIH voluntary research public access policy. And Amendment 3417 will modify provisions to maintain the NIH voluntary research public access policy. Amendment #3416 would eliminate the provision altogether. According to Peter Suber, author of the Open Access News, Amendment #3417 is likely to be presented to your Senator as a compromise that “balances” the needs of the public and of publishers. In reality, the current language in the NIH public access provision accomplishes that goal. Passage of either amendment would seriously undermine access to this important public resource, and damage the community’s ability to advance scientific research and discovery.

Despite whatever happens to the amendments, the probability is that Bush will veto the entire appropriations bill anyway and in doing so, send it back to the Appropriations committee as both the House and the Senate must approve the same Appropriations bill. This will present an interesting question for the proponents of Open Access, if this should happen, might it be better to wait for a better day to bring this issue back to the Congress.

Let’s be frank, the current problem is only in the White House for another 400+ days. The next holder of the office, particularly as universal health seems to be all the rage in the presidential campaign, may well be much more pro-OA. Yes, it has taken a long time to get this far but perhaps another year would be a better than getting tangled up in congressional wording written by politicians who, realistically, are more reactive than pragmatic....

Comment.  It may be that the next president will be friendlier to OA than the current one.  But I'm still optimistic that we can win an OA mandate at NIH this year, even if Bush vetoes the first version of the LHHS appropriations bill.  Two of the reasons are (1) bipartisan support for OA in Congress, and (2) Republican support for OA in both the legislative and executive branches.  I'll have more to say about this in the November issue of SOAN.  Meantime, thanks again to Information Today for permitting Robin to post these preprints.