Meredith Wadman, NIH head stands firm over plans for open access, Nature, November 25, 2004 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt: 'The director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has hit back at critics of his proposal for a freely accessible literature archive. In an interview with Nature, Elias Zerhouni accused scientific publishers of floating "doomsday scenarios" in which the archive causes widespread cancellations of journal subscriptions and drives smaller publications out of business. He stressed that submission of papers on NIH-funded research would be left to the discretion of authors. But publishers rejected his assurances, saying that researchers would feel pressured to submit their papers for fear of losing out on future NIH grants. Zerhouni's comments came on 16 November, at the end of a 60-day public discussion period that generated more than 6,000 comments on the proposal....Many scientific publishers oppose the [NIH plan], saying that offering their articles for free could drive journals out of business. They add that inaccuracies will be preserved in PubMed, because the policy proposes that articles be posted before copyediting and correcting. But patient-activist groups and librarians have been vocally supportive. They argue that the archive would improve public education, communication between scientists and the translation of biomedical advances into healthcare. Zerhouni last week dismissed some of the publishers' fears, accusing them of releasing "misinformation" about the impact on subscriptions....The NIH is scheduled to submit a final version of the policy to Congress by 1 December, but Zerhouni says that the flood of comments makes it almost certain that this deadline will slip.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/29/2004 03:16:00 PM.
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.
