The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a part of the Library of Congress, is Congress’ reference desk and research arm. With an annual budget of approximately $96 million and a staff of 700, CRS produces solid, objective, well-researched material covering the current legislative agenda as well as reports written in response to requests from members of Congress. Topics cover a wide array of issues --almost anything of interest to policymakers. However, CRS does not release any of its reports directly to the public. Instead it leaves that option to members of Congress as part of their services to their constituencies. Because American taxpayers fund the studies, however, the reports --if you can find them-- are public domain. Free Internet services offering copies of CRS reports have begun to emerge, but the free offerings, supplied by sources such as the new Open CRS, still cannot match the comprehensiveness of some fee-based services, such as Penny Hill Press' collection, which is available in full text through GalleryWatch.com....Open CRS tracks the appearance of more than 8,400 CRS studies on the Web and provides central indexing and links to them....Not only does Open CRS provide a central clearinghouse for studies already out on the Web, it also lobbies Congress to open access to all CRS Reports....Penny Hill charges $29.95 for long reports and $19.95 for shorter reports. (Students pay $19.95/$12.95.)...And what about the public domain status of the documents? [Walter] Seager said that GalleryWatch already has license provisions with subscribers that block use of the reports outside a subscriber's organization. Penny Hill plans to have a similar arrangement in place. Seager agreed that public domain has its place. "It's a good idea. The taxpayers pay for the documents," said Seager, "and they should be freely available. But as long as I have to work this hard to get them, I have to get paid."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/11/2005 04:55:00 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.
