The British Columbia Library Association (BCLA) has released its April 13 comments to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, to aid the committee's inquiry into federally funded research performed by universities. (Thanks to Heather Morrison.) Excerpt:
BCLA believes that federally funded research should be openly accessible to everyone, everywhere. Taxpayers, whether they are individual or businesses, should have access to the results of research that they have funded....
Rural doctors and other health professionals have a right to the results of the very latest research funded by Canadian tax dollars. Their patients have a right to benefit from this access for their health professionals, and they also have a right to read the research literature for themselves, if they choose.
All Canadians benefit from public access to the results of federally funded research. If a civil servant, politician, teacher, parent, or school trustee is able to make a better, more informed decision because they have access to the best and latest knowledge; this is for the good of all.
BCLA strongly supports the principle and practice of Open Access. The association adopted a Resolution on Open Access in 2004, and is recognized on the Open Access Timeline as one of the first library associations in the world to do so....
In Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council adopted open access in principle in 2004, and currently has a pilot Aid to Open Access Journals program. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has a Policy on Access to Research Outputs, requiring open access to funded research within 6 months of publication. Genome Canada and the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance have policies requiring open access to the research that they fund....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/16/2008 09:27:00 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.
