More on the Sabo bill....Paul Elias has written up the story for the AP, focusing more on PLoS than the Sabo legislative proposal. Excerpt: "U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo, a Minnesota Democrat, introduced legislation Thursday that would give immediate public access to all research papers created mostly with federal money, regardless of which journal published them. The federal government doles out more than $50 billion in research funds a year. Many scientific journals, such as Science and Nature, own the copyrights to the research papers reprinted in their publications and charge for access to them. Scientists such as Nobel laureate Harold Varmus have railed against that system for years, arguing the public and scientists operating on a shoe string are excluded from access because of the high costs of subscribing to the journals. They also say it inhibits scientific collaboration. 'Unlimited access to scientific research will speed discoveries and medical advances,' said Varmus, president of Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/26/2003 06:36:00 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.
