Andrew Richard Albanese, Life After the NIH, Library Journal, April 15, 2005. Excerpt: 'On January 15, 2005, a standing-room-only crowd of librarians listened as a panel of experts, moderated by Columbia University's Jim Neal, voiced support for the National Institute of Health's (NIH) proposal to mandate free online access to the research it funds. On the dais at this SPARC/ACRL forum at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Boston, there was a librarian from the National Library of Medicine. There was an eloquent scientist. The star of the session, however, was a citizen named Sharon Terry. A former college chaplain, Terry is a leading voice in the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, a key ally with SPARC in lobbying for the NIH's access plan. She captivated librarians, even brought some to tears with the story of how she and her husband were reduced to "stealing passwords" and other schemes to access medical literature in libraries --literature that eventually helped them to help their doctors treat their two young children, both suffering from a rare form of cancer....In the wake of the NIH proposal, there is clearly more scrutiny than ever on the open access movement even though the NIH did not propose open access....[For SPARC] much of 2004 was devoted to pushing the NIH proposal, and much of SPARC's 2005 strategic plan concerning public advocacy is dedicated to monitoring and helping to market the NIH's final policy. That has some, including [Stevan] Harnad, questioning whether this is the best use of librarians' time and resources....The NIH policy, Harnad contends, is an example of the library community's very good intentions gone bad. "The NIH endorses back access, not open access," he explains. "I mildly supported the policy at a six-month delay, but at 12 months, and as a request, I got off the boat." Specifically, Harnad argues, the NIH policy in essence does little more than create a de facto embargo period of 12 months. "If this is how open access is being defined by the NIH, six months, or a year," Harnad says, "then of course that's what some people will do." In response, [Rick] Johnson [of SPARC] says it is a mistake to take the current NIH policy at face value and that the public discussion SPARC has helped fuel will crystallize into success for open access. "Without such a clear symbol of why we need open access, change on a broad scale would occur at a slower pace," he says. "I am convinced that Congress will not be satisfied with a de facto 12-month embargo, and I can't imagine the NIH will be either."'
(PS: It's misleading to depict this strategic disagreement as a rift, as if some OA proponents were happy with the weakened form of the NIH policy and some were not. All the parties Albanese discusses are unhappy with it. The fact that some see some forward steps to accompany the backward steps doesn't change that.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/15/2005 12:27:00 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.
