Aliya Sternstein, NIH expands digital archive, Federal Computer Week, April 4, 2005. A general introduction to the NIH public-access policy and the controversy it sparked. Excerpt: 'Critics say the open-access movement may force researchers to pay to have their articles published in professional journals because free digital archives will undermine the financial basis of medical and scientific publishing. [PS: reply 1 and reply 2.] But supporters of open access say NIH officials should have made the submission policy mandatory. "We think NIH certainly grasped the importance and rationale for taxpayer access to NIH-funded research," said Rick Johnson, director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. However, he said the policy's execution could have been handled better. "The unfortunate thing is that scientists have been put in the middle here," he said. "We believe that NIH had the responsibility and the authority to call upon all NIH grantees to deposit their research articles." Patrice McDermott, deputy director of the American Library Association's Office of Government Relations, expressed similar disappointment with the final policy for making researchers' participation voluntary. "We think it's a move back from what NIH initially agreed to," she said.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/04/2005 03:38:00 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.
