Monday, May 08, 2006

Open Access Science? S 2695

Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, S 2695 (link) to summary of bill from GPO Access. Within 1 year of passage the bill requires each federal agency with a budget of $100,000,000 or more to get a policy in place to require recipients of federal funds to place the results of their federally funded research online for free public access not later than 6 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The agencies also have to provide for a stable archive of such research. Cool. Journal publishers are naturally uneasy. Grant recipients are not sure how they feel. As a librarian who has winced in fellow feeling watching the libraries who must buy increasingly expensive science journals and who is watching in budgetary dismay as my school gets a law and bio-medical curriculum going, I cheer!

Credit Nick Anthis link at the Scientific Activist. I thought I had linked to his great blog entry and was just supporting it, but I can't see where it linked on the OOTJ blog. Here is the link back to Nick's excellent entry on the issue.

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