ARL and SPARC Support Open Access to Federally Funded Research

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

Of possible interest.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 09:07:08 -0400
From: Judith Matz <judith@arl.org>
To: Activities and Programs of ARL <ARL-ANNOUNCE@arl.org>
Subject: ARL and SPARC Support Open Access to Federally Funded Research

ARL AND SPARC SUPPORT OPEN ACCESS TO FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH
August 6, 2003

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and SPARC (the Scholarly
Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) support the goal of timely,
sustained, and reliable open access to federally funded research and
encourage broad discussion on the most effective strategies to achieve
this goal.

By open access we mean no-fee access on the public internet to works and
data that are currently given away to publishers by researchers and
scholars with no expectation of financial payment. Open access is an
effective means to ensure broad distribution and use of information that
is fundamental to the health and welfare of our society. Both ARL and
SPARC expressed their commitment to open access by signing on to the
Budapest Open Access Initiative in February 2002. ARL�s strategic plan for
its copyright and scholarly communication programs identifies open access
as a priority goal.

In recent months, founders of the Public Library of Science have focused
the discussion of open access on a particular subset of research works,
those that are created as a result of federal funding. These scientists
maintain that research conducted with taxpayer dollars ought to be freely
available to those taxpayers. Fundamental to this concept is the belief
that the purpose of federally funded research is to advance knowledge and
accelerate new discoveries benefiting society at large. It is critical
that this new knowledge be readily available to physicians, researchers,
and individual members of the public, including those who are unaffiliated
with or remote from libraries that subscribe to increasingly expensive
journals and databases that are the current outlets for much federally
funded research. Broad and timely open access to the results of this
research is essential to maximize the return on taxpayer investment.

For all of these reasons, ARL and SPARC support the principle of open
access to federally funded research. A variety of strategies have been
proposed to achieve this goal, including the recent introduction of
legislation by Congressman Martin Sabo (D-MN) to place articles reporting
on federally funded research into the public domain (H.R. 2613, the Public
Access to Science Act of 2003). ARL and SPARC welcome the platform this
legislation has provided for public discussion of these important issues.

ARL and SPARC recognize that universities, scientists, societies,
publishers, librarians, and authors have legitimate concerns that must be
reconciled if the most effective means to achieve open access are to be
found. ARL and SPARC encourage broad discussion among stakeholders and
will seek to facilitate such conversations.

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The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a not-for-profit
association of over 120 research libraries in North America. Its mission
is to shape and influence forces affecting the future of research
libraries in the process of scholarly communication. ARL programs and
services promote equitable access to and effective use of recorded
knowledge in support of teaching, research, scholarship, and community
service. For more information on open access, see the ARL website
<http://www.arl.org/scomm/open_access/index.html>.

SPARC <http://www.arl.org/sparc/> is an international alliance of 275
academic and research libraries, including 186 libraries in the United
States. It was created as an initiative of ARL to address serious
problems caused by the high cost of scientific, technical, and medical
journals and to unleash the potential of the digital networked
environment for enhancing the scholarly communication process.

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Judith Matz
Communications Officer
Association of Research Libraries
21 Dupont Circle, NW  #800
Washington, DC  20036-1118
Phone  202-296-2296
Fax  202-872-0884
judith@arl.org