[eifloa] "To law or not to law"

Sat Nov 3 22:00:18 EET 2007

Dear Audrone,

Thanks for your message. Yes, I would recommend having a law passed which would mandate open access to government funded research.  Some government funding agencies adopt mandates themselves (as is the case w/six out of the seven research funding agencies in the UK), whereas other mandates can be implemented by law. Right now in the US we are in the midst of a legislative battle to pass a public access mandate for all research funded by the US National Institutes of Heather. eIFL’s close friend, Heather Joseph, is leading the fight for this bill.  Below please find more information on the current status of the bill. 

For more information on mandates being adopted by governments and funding agencies, you can review the Juliet site (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/) w/in the SHERPA Project which lists funders’ policies.

Please let us know if you have any questions as eIFL and OSI would like to do all we can to support the development of OA within Lithuania.

best,

Melissa Hagemann

**************************

Alliance for Taxpayer Access

www.taxpayeraccess.org

For immediate release

October 24, 2007

Contact:

Jennifer McLennan

jennifer [at] arl [dot] org

(202) 296-2296 ext. 121

MANDATE FOR PUBLIC ACCESS TO NIH-FUNDED RESEARCH POISED TO BECOME LAW

Full U.S. Senate Approves Bill Containing Support for Access To Taxpayer-Funded Research

Washington, D.C.  October 24, 2007 - The U.S. Senate last night approved the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill (S.1710), including a provision that directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its Public Access Policy by requiring rather than requesting participation by researchers. The bill will now be reconciled with the House Appropriations Bill, which contains a similar provision, in another step toward support for public access to publicly funded research becoming United States law. 

³Last night¹s Senate action is a milestone victory for public access to taxpayer-funded research,² said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a founding member of the ATA). ³This policy sets the stage for researchers, patients, and the general public to benefit in new and important ways from our collective investment in the critical biomedical research conducted by the NIH.²

Under a mandatory policy, NIH-funded researchers will be required to deposit copies of eligible manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine¹s online database, PubMed Central. Articles will be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

The current NIH Public Access Policy, first implemented in 2005, is a voluntary measure and has resulted in a de deposit rate of less than 5% by individual investigators. The advance to a mandatory policy is the result of more than two years of monitoring and evaluation by the NIH, Congress, and the community. 

³We thank our Senators for taking action on this important issue,² said Pat Furlong, Founding President and CEO of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy.

³This level of access to NIH-funded research will impact the disease process in novel ways, improving the ability of scientists to advance therapies and enabling patients and their advocates to participate more effectively. The advance is timely, much-needed, and  we anticipate  an indication of increasingly enhanced access in future.²

³American businesses will benefit tremendously from improved access to NIH research,² said William Kovacs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs. ³The Chamber encourages the free and timely dissemination of scientific knowledge produced by the NIH as it will improve both the public and industry¹s ability to become better informed on developments that impact them  and on opportunities for innovation.² The Chamber is the world¹s largest business federation, representing more than three million businesses of every size, sector, and region. 

³We welcome the NIH policy being made mandatory and thank Congress for backing this important step,² said Gary Ward, Treasurer of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). ³Free and timely public access to scientific literature is necessary to ensure that new discoveries are made as quickly as feasible. It¹s the right thing to do, given that taxpayers fund this research.² The ASCB represents 11,000 members and publishes the highly ranked peer-reviewed journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Joseph added, ³On behalf of the taxpayers, patients, researchers, students, libraries, universities, and businesses that pressed this bill forward with their support over the past two years, the ATA thanks Congress for throwing its weight behind the success of taxpayer access to taxpayer-funded research.²

Negotiators from the House and Senate are expected to meet to reconcile their respective bills this fall. The final, consolidated bill will have to pass the House and the Senate before being delivered to the President at the end of the year.

###

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient, academic, research, and publishing organizations that supports open public access to the results of federally funded research. The Alliance was formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles stemming from taxpayer-funded research become fully accessible and available online at no extra cost to the American public. Details on the ATA may be found at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org <http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/> .

--------------------------

Jennifer McLennan

Director of Communications

SPARC

(The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition) http://www.arl.org/sparc

(202) 296-2296 ext 121

jennifer at arl.org

________________________________

From: Audrone Glosiene [mailto:audra.glosiene at kf.vu.lt] 
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 4:41 AM
To: Susan Veldsman; eifloa at eifl.net; Elena Maceviciute; Elena Maceviciute; Prof. Tom Wilson; lyn; David Bawden; pi at db.dk; Olle Persson; Terttu Kortelainen; Aira Lepik; Sirje Virkus; Baiba Sporane; Terry Weech; Susan Schnuer; Blumendorf, Peter; Ragnar Audunson; Pertti Vakkari; Niels Windfeld Lund; Aleksandra Horvat; Anna Maria Tammaro
Subject: [eifloa] "To law or not to law"

Dear colleagues and friends,

this is not the first time that I turn to you for your expert opinion on certain (usually, imporant:)) issues. Now it is whether to have national legislation on open acces or not. Currently we have a debate in Lithuania on OA and there are pros and cons, so I would highly appreciate if you could comment on just two aspects:

1. Is law (or any other form of legal regulation) on open acces, in your opinion, needed?

2. Could you please provide examples of such leislation whether from your country or elswhere?

Many thanks and my best wishes from rainy Vilnius,

Audronė Glosienė
Vilniaus universiteto bibliotekos generalinė direktorė
Universiteto 3
01122 Vilnius
Tel. (8 5) 2687 126
Mob. 8 610 01772
audra.glosiene at kf.vu.lt

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