RE: NEJM editorial on open access

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Two brief comments on John Sack's informative message:

1.  I had read the NEJM editorial in the same way, namely that the authors
were asking for the option to link to NEJM's (or other publishers' sites)
rather than necessarily posting articles to PubMed Central.  If that is a
publisher's preference, what would be amiss in permitting it?  In fact, it
would seem to be an easier solution...

2.  Re. NIH-funded research: Does anyone know what percentage of
biomedical research in the US is funded through NIH?  I had thought it was
a huge majority but it seems more accurate proportions would be between
20-30%.  Anyone out in liblicense-l land who can offer numbers with at
least somewhat authoritative sources?

Ann Okerson/Yale Library

>John Sack wrote:
>
>And to bring my long email and this whole thread full circle, that is
>what the NEJM editorial is suggesting: a link from the NIH repository
>would deliver the article from the NEJM website for publishers who prefer
>that approach.
>
>PS: Here's an interesting factoid: just about half of the NIH-funded
>research studies in 2003 were published in HighWire-hosted journals.  
>And of that half, 85% is free within a year.  So the NIH plan is at least
>partly accomplished already in spirit in the sense that the literature is
>freely accessible, and of course it is indexed in PubMed and searchable
>in google as well.  But it isn't free within 6 months, and it isn't
>mostly in PMC (though entirely in PubMed).