[Ecommerce] Online Access to Scientific research bill

[Manon Ress]

Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) announced
last week that the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 would
require agencies with annual research budgets of more than $100
million to implement a public access policy granting faster access to
research supported by government.  This is the first bill mandating
that taxpayers receive free online access to journal articles
containing federally funded research within six months of the
articles=92 publication.  Researchers funded by the agencies must
submit an electronic copy of the final manuscript accepted for
publication.  The legislation also includes the types of technologies
agencies must use to make the information available. The manuscripts
have to be preserved in a stable, digital repository providing free
public access, interoperability and long-term preservation.

TEXT of bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas

More at: http://www.arl.org/sparc/

Today NYT:

Some Publishers of Scholarly Journals Dislike Bill to Require Online
Access to Articles

By SARA IVRY
Published: May 8, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/08/business/media/08journal.html?
_r=3D1&oref=3Dslogin

Scholarly publishing has never been a big business. But it could take
a financial hit if a proposed federal law is enacted, opening
taxpayer-financed research to the public, according to some critics
in academic institutions.

The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, proposed last week by
Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and John
Cornyn, Republican of Texas, would require 11 government agencies to
publish online any articles that contained research financed with
federal grants. If enacted, the measure would require that the
articles be accessible online without charge within six months of
their initial publication in a scholarly journal.

"Not everybody has a library next door. I don't mean to be flippant
about it, but this gives access to anybody," said Donald Stewart, a
spokesman for Senator Cornyn. "The genesis of this was his interest
in open government and finding ways to reform our Freedom of
Information laws and taxpayer access to federally funded work."

Some members of the scholarly publishing industry are wary of the
legislation. Howard H. Garrison, the director of public affairs at
the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, an
organization whose members collectively publish approximately 60
journals, argued that the legislation would weaken the connection
between the journals and their readers and that journals could lose
subscribers and ad revenue if articles were available online.

"People won't be able to gauge how many people will be reading the
articles and that has ramifications for advertising, promotion," he
said. "Does it reach 1,000 scientists, 2,000 or 50? If the articles
are on a government Web site, your readership may be halved."

Scientific data is easily misinterpreted, said Joann Boughman,
executive vice president of the American Society of Human Genetics,
publisher of The American Journal of Human Genetics. "Consumers
themselves are saying, 'We have the right to know these things as
quickly as we can.' That is not incorrect. However, wherever there is
a benefit, there is a risk associated with it."

A year ago, the National Institutes of Health introduced a policy
encouraging scientists who had received N.I.H. financing to submit
published articles within a year to a central database at the
National Library of Medicine. Fewer than 4 percent of researchers
have complied.

Catherine McKenna Ribeiro, the deputy press secretary for Senator
Lieberman, said mandatory compliance would "foster information
sharing, prevent duplication of research efforts, and generate new
lines of scientific inquiry." She said in an e-mail message that the
bill would, in effect, allow agencies to better monitor what
publications were a result of their grants.

Betsy L. Humphreys, the deputy director of the National Library of
Medicine, said she was not surprised that researchers had not always
complied with N.I.H.'s request. "I think it's like anything else in
the lives of busy people who prefer to spend their time doing
science," she said.

************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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