Open Access News

The ACRL has released its 2009 Legislative Agenda.  Here's #2 on its eight-point agenda:

Public Access to Federally-Funded Research – supporting enhanced access to federally-funded research through open-access publication and open-data policies.

Also see the section on this priority in its full-length report:

Brief Background/Legislative History: In February 2005 after many months of discussion and deliberation the National Institutes of Health (NIH) introduced their policy on “Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH Funded Research.” On December 26, 2007 the NIH Policy became mandatory with passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R. 2764.) Federal Research Public Access Act (2006) FRPAA has not been reintroduced in the current Congress. Open data policies outline requirements for the management of publicly funded original research data that enables minimally restricted downstream use and reuse for the advancement of knowledge. Such policies promise similar advantages and opportunities to libraries as do policies for public access to published research results, including downward pressure on the cost of information products, ease in providing access to and preservation of an institution's scholarly output, and support for the advancement of knowledge by opening up primary data to re-interpretation, student use, etc.

Current Status: The Chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Member (Rep. John Conyers, D-MI) re-introduced a bill into the 111th Congress that would reverse the NIH Public Access Policy and make it impossible for other federal agencies to put similar policies into place. The legislation is H.R. 801: the “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act."

As of April 7, 2008, investigators who receive NIH funding must submit their final peer-reviewed manuscripts to PubMed Central no later than 12 months after acceptance for journal publication. For all applications, proposals or progress reports submitted for the NIH’s May 25, 2008 due date or beyond, investigators need to include a PubMed Central reference number when citing articles they have authored or co-authored with support from an NIH award. Open data legislation or policy developments have already been adopted in some form by the NIH and the NSF.

Impact on Academic Libraries: Public access to this important health science research will improve access particularly for those users affiliated with libraries (small colleges, non-health science libraries, etc.) that could not afford access to a broad range of health science journal literature. Libraries at institutions with NIH grant holders may wish to construct or consult on services that assist researcher or institutional compliance. Local, regional, and national scholarly communication programs will want to track the implementation of the NIH policy in order to inform their response to additional proposed funder mandates, e.g. if a version of the Federal Research Public Access Act (2006) is reintroduced....