Re: NIH as publisher

[heatherm@eln.bc.ca]

One of Joe's basic questions is whether governments should get involved in
publishing.  There is nothing new about government publishing. Governments
everywhere, at all levels, have been publishing all along.  Good thing,
too - a government that is not publishing anything, is either very
secretive or not doing anything at all.

The question of the appropriate boundaries of the public and private
spheres is a separate question.

Leaving aside the question of PubChem altogether, it is my opinion that
not only PubChem, but all of our chemical knowledge belongs in the public
sphere, as open access.  Here is my position, in brief, with links to more
detailed messages:

Chemistry and the Public Interest:  we have urgent, global problems, such
as global warming and environmental damage, for which there are answers in
the chemical literature.  Environmental clean-up needs to happen around
the globe. Every community has a right to find out what they are dealing
with.  This requires all the specific information, but also all the
resources, period, so that every community can afford to educate chemists.  
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1946.html

Chemistry, open access, and the corporate sector:  the present system of
high subscription prices, funding not only publications but the good works
of the society as well, does not serve corporations well.  Many cannot
afford the products.  Those which can, however, would be better off
donating money for the good works, rather than being forced to pay through
subscriptions. Donations can be written off against taxes; subscriptions
cannot.  Donations can be increased and decreased depending on the
company's fortunes, while a subscription-based service can mean loss of
access to needed information at a critical time when the company needs it
most.  https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1947.html

For those interested in details about the fight for PubChem, good
resources are Peter Suber's Open Access News blog at
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html or the SPARC Open Access
Forum at https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/List.html

A personal view by,

Heather Morrison

Flash: no one every died from copyright circumvention. Lawrence Lessig, Free
Culture,Penguin, 2004.
Open Access version:  http://free-culture.org/freecontent/
Some purchase options:	http://free-culture.org/get-it/

This statement may be copied and redistributed under Creative Commons
(Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0).