ARL and SPARC have issued a public statement supporting open access to federally funded research. Excerpts:
In recent months, founders of the Public Library of Science have focused the discussion of open access on a particular subset of research works, those that are created as a result of federal funding. These scientists maintain that research conducted with taxpayer dollars ought to be freely available to those taxpayers. Fundamental to this concept is the belief that the purpose of federally funded research is to advance knowledge and accelerate new discoveries benefiting society at large. It is critical that this new knowledge be readily available to physicians, researchers, and individual members of the public, including those who are unaffiliated with or remote from libraries that subscribe to increasingly expensive journals and databases that are the current outlets for much federally funded research. Broad and timely open access to the results of this research is essential to maximize the return on taxpayer investment.
For all of these reasons, ARL and SPARC support the principle of open access to federally funded research. A variety of strategies have been proposed to achieve this goal, including the recent introduction of legislation by Congressman Martin Sabo (D-MN) to place articles reporting on federally funded research into the public domain (H.R. 2613, the Public Access to Science Act of 2003). ARL and SPARC welcome the platform this legislation has provided for public discussion of these important issues.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/07/2003 08:29:00 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.
