NIH mandate set to become law

[Ray English <Ray.English@oberlin.edu>]

The LJ Academic Newswire
December 20, 2007

Success!  NIH Provision Remains Intact

Librarians today are set to ring in the New Year with the 
nation's first ever public access mandate. Both the House of 
Representatives and Senate this week approved the revised Labor 
Health and Human Services (LHHS) appropriations bill which leaves 
intact a directive for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 
requiring investigators to deposit their final papers in PubMed 
Central. Papers will then be available within a year after 
publication. All that's left is the president's signature, which 
is expected, and could come this week. The approval caps a 
several years-long fight spearheaded by SPARC, to make public 
access a requirement for NIH grantees.