In February of 2005 the National Institutes of Health unveiled a revolutionary policy that promised to open up the world of scientific publishing. That policy is now coming under siege from the publishing industry and their minions in Congress.
More below...
Federally funded researchers typically publish their results in traditional scientific journals. Copyright is transferred to the journal and neither the researchers nor the government receive any compensation in return. The journals charge for access and the fees are often quite steep. Anyone who's paid US $30.00 for a three page article knows what this means.
The new policy requires researchers who receive federal funds to give the NIH non-exclusive rights to publish their works and also requires them to submit their work to the PubMed repository. This effectively opens the results of federally funded scientific research to anyone with an internet connection.
When the NIH adopted the new rules the publishing industry howled. They found a friend in Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) who submitted The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 6845) last year as an attempt to kill the policy and prevent its adoption by other federal agencies. The bill stalled last year, but now it's back.
Rep. Conyers has re-introduced the bill as H.R.801. If you agree that the results of federally funded research should be in the public domain, please contact Rep. Conyers or his cosponsors and let them know how you feel.
Here are some links with a better description of the situation.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/...
http://www.earlham.edu/...
This is the NIH page explaining the current policy:
http://publicaccess.nih.gov/
Again, if you agree that this situation is appalling, here is the contact information:
Cosponsors are:
Rep Steve Cohen
Rep Trent Franks
Rep Darrell Issa
Rep Robert Wexler
Rep. Conyers:
Washington Office: 202-225-5126
Detroit Office: 313-961-5670
Trenton / Downriver Office: 734-675-4084
john.conyers@mail.house.gov
*** Update ****
Thanks to mem from somerville for pointing out these omissions:
Here is the link to PubMed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...
It should also be noted that the NIH policy does allow limited exclusivity.
Here's the statement from the NIH page linked above:
The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. It requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. To help advance science and improve human health, the Policy requires that these papers are accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication.