[A2k] KEI letter to Senate on open access

[James Love]

United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

July 23, 2007

Dear Senator:

We are writing to urge the Senate to approve provisions in the FY
2008 Labor/HHS Appropriations Bill that direct the National
Institutes of Health to implement a mandatory obligation to provide
free public access to research articles resulting from NIH-funded
research.  Specifically, the provision requires researchers to
provide copies of NIH-funded research articles to the National
Library of Medicine's online archive, to be made publicly available
no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.

The public, including the taxpayers who pay for the research, will
benefit from access to the published findings.  The expanded access
will be particularly important to scientists, small business-owners,
physicians and clinicians, patients, students and educators.

Some peer-reviewed medical papers are already available online and
are of great benefit to doctors when informing patients of treatment
options.  Such information empowers these patients, their families,
and friends and enables them to make more informed decisions.
However, the vast majority of papers supported with taxpayer funding
are not available to the general public, ever.

NIH's policy now calls for the voluntary deposit of articles in the
online archive.  The deposit rate for individual researchers is less
than five percent.  The voluntary approach has failed to protect the
public=92s interest in obtaining access to the research.

A mandate will ensure the public has access to all NIH-funded
research.  Please support the mandate that extends to all research
papers that benefited from NIH funding.

Sincerely,

Dr. Manon Ress (manon.ress@keionline.org, 202.332.2670)
James Love (james.love@keionline.org, 202.332.2670)
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), http://www.keinonline.org

The text of the provision in HR 3043 (Making appropriations for the
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and
related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008)  is
as follows:

SEC. 217. The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall
require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have
submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed
Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed
manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly
available no later than 12 months after the official date of
publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access
policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.


----------------------------------------------
James Packard Love
Knowledge Ecology International
mailto:james.love@keionline.org
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / U.S. mobile+1.202.361.3040, Geneva mobile
+41.76.413.6584

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks." Bill Walton"