Recent months have seen several important developments in public access to the scientific literature. In April, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni testified before Congress that the NIH’s current Public Access policy is not working. Compliance with the policy, which requests that NIH-funded investigators make the results of their work freely accessible in PubMed Central no later than one year after publication, has been exceedingly low: Fewer than 5% of publications funded by NIH are currently being deposited within that time frame. Lawmakers in Washington subsequently introduced bills that would require government-funded researchers to make their results freely available to the public (see sidebar, page 6).
Not surprisingly, congressional interest has mobilized advocates on both sides of the issue. Many publishers are lobbying hard against the proposed legislation, while public interest groups, library associations, patient advocates, and some scientific societies are supportive. Universities have finally begun to weigh in on the issue; provosts and presidents from 126 leading universities and colleges across the U.S. have signed onto letters expressing support for the legislation....
As efforts to provide greater public access to the scientific literature gain momentum, so does the rhetoric. Following is an attempt to correct some of the misinformation that has confounded these discussions, to enable more dispassionate and data-driven consideration of the issues at hand....
The rest of the article is hard to excerpt and I recommend that you read it all. Ward raises and answers nine objections that publishers often raise against national OA policies: (1) that they would force publishers to convert non-OA journals to OA; (2) that they would undermine subscriptions and revenue; (3) that a six month embargo is too short; (4) that OA policies threaten peer review; (5) that the costs of implementation would be better spent on new grants; (6) that everyone who needs access already has access; (7) that publishers should be able to charge for the value they add; (8) that OA policies would burden researchers; and (9) that the public doesn't care.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/08/2006 12:26:00 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.
