The ACRL has issued a press release on the NIH public-access policy. Excerpt: 'In letters to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni, ACRL congratulated NIH for having "taken a significant step to improve public access to NIH-funded research." The new NIH policy will make a large portion of NIH research openly available to the public in PubMed Central within a 12-month timeframe, following publication in peer-reviewed journals. The policy also gives researchers a clear opportunity to make their work openly accessible as soon after publication as they choose, without seeking publisher permission. Frances Maloy, ACRL President, and Ray English, chair of the ACRL Scholarly Communications Committee, expressed concern, however, that the NIH policy is voluntary on the part of researchers, in contrast to an earlier Congressional recommendation. They also noted that the policy would make all research deposited into PubMed Central openly accessible 12 months after publication - far longer than the six months called for in NIH's original draft proposal. "We believe that delays of up to 12 months, especially in biomedical fields, serve neither the interests of science nor the public," the letters state.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/14/2005 10:31:00 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.
