July 20th, 2007, the US House of Representatives [approved a measure][1] directing the National Institute of Health (NIH) to require free, online access to agency-funded research within 12 months of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. Open Access advocates praised the provision, passed with broad, bipartisan support as part of the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill. “This action paves the way for all scientists and citizens to access, use, and benefit from the results of publicly funded biomedical research," said said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and a leader of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access. 26 Nobel Laureates called for mandatory public access to NIH research in a recent letter to congress, citing the Human Genome Project and benefits of public access to research. Less than 5% of eligible, individual research has become publicly accessible under the current, voluntary NIH Public Access Policy.
We are a member of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, and this is something we've been working towards for a long time! You may recall our [national day of action][2] for open access, when we tabled and held other events on campuses across the country in support of a similar bill. It's very gratifying to see this pass the House, and we can only hope that with your help we can make sure this gets through the Senate when that comes to a vote as well. [1]: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/media/release07-0720.html [2]: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/media/Release07-0201.html URL: http://freeculture.org/blog/2007/08/01/house-backs-open-access/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
