RE: Sabo Bill: Measure Calls for Wider Access to Federally Financed Research

["T Scott Plutchak" <tscott@uab.edu>]

Depends on what you mean by "available".  A couple of months ago I had
some correspondence with the chief of staff of a small rural hospital in
western Alabama who is trying to figure out how he and his colleagues can
get access to the latest clinical research.  His hospital is hanging by a
thread financially (as is the case with most hospitals and clinics in
rural America), so subscribing to or licensing everything that he needs is
out of the question.  He has a hard time understanding why, if he's paying
for this research in the first place with his tax dollars, he can't
readily access the results of that research.  I can supply him with copies
of articles through interlibrary loan at $11/each (well, I can in those
cases where the terms of the license don't prevent me from doing that),
once he's figured out exactly what articles he wants to see.  But this is
a miserably inefficient way for him to try to keep up.

This scenario is repeated in every small hospital, clinic and doctor's
office in rural America and in much of the inner city.  Don't tell these
health care practioners that this stuff is "already available" and that
their concern for giving their patients the best care possibile is a
"tempest in a teapot."

T. Scott Plutchak
Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham

tscott@uab.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph J. Esposito [mailto:espositoj@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 9:26 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Sabo Bill: Measure Calls for Wider Access to Federally
Financed Research 

There appears to be a misunderstanding about making research information
available when it is funded by the public.  Such research is already
available; there is no need for a law to change that.  This is true
whether the information is mounted on a Web server administered by a
library or published by such demons as Reed Elsevier or John Wiley. What
is not necessarily available is the tangible expression of that research,
which may be copyrighted.  You cannot copyright an idea.  You just can't.  
Ideas are in the public domain.  This is all a tempest in a teapot.  
Example:  There is not a single person on this mailing list who cannot
summarize the ideas in Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind,
including those who haven't had the misfortune of having read it.  The
book is protected by copyright, but you can summarize the ideas anyway.

This is why nonfiction books go out of print and stay out of print,
because the widespread circulation of the ideas makes the original books
less and less essential. Copyright and the rapaciousness of publishers
have nothing to do with it.

Joe Esposito