Open access to federally funded research -- growing momentum

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

Today's Washington Post has a great story on the developing 
political momentum for changing US government policy to require 
government funded health researchers to make the results of their 
research openly available in the Internet.  The story describes 
recent developments that are moving in the direction of a change 
in the voluntary NIH policy -- a change that would make deposit 
in PubMed Central a requirement and mandate open access within 
six months of publication.

The story also mentions two Senate bills.  The first, which has 
been introduced by Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Thad Cochran 
(R-MS) is the American Center for CURES Act, which has a 
provision requiring open access (within six months of publication 
in peer-review journals) to research sponsored by Health and 
Human Services Agencies (NIH, CDC, etc. ).  The story also 
mentions a bill being considered by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) 
that would require public access to government-funded research 
across a broad array of U.S. government agencies.  Although the 
story doesn't mention it, Cornyn's bill is supposed to be 
introduced soon.

The title of the story is:
Government Health Researchers Pressed to Share Data at No Charge
and it's available at this URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/09/
AR2006030901960.html?sub=AR

Note that access to the Post is free, but need to be registered first
before gaining access.

Ray English
Director of Libraries
Oberlin College