Excerpts from the Oct. 24 Alliance for Taxpayer Access press release:
The U.S. Senate last night approved the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill (S.1710), including a provision that directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its Public Access Policy by requiring rather than requesting participation by researchers. The bill will now be reconciled with the House Appropriations Bill, which contains a similar provision, in another step toward support for public access to publicly funded research becoming United States law.
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Under a mandatory policy, NIH-funded researchers will be required to deposit copies of eligible manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine¹s online database, PubMed Central. Articles will be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The current NIH Public Access Policy, first implemented in 2005, is a voluntary measure and has resulted in a de deposit rate of less than 5% by individual investigators. The advance to a mandatory policy is the result of more than two years of monitoring and evaluation by the NIH, Congress, and the community.
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"We welcome the NIH policy being made mandatory and thank Congress for backing this important step," said Gary Ward, Treasurer of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). "Free and timely public access to scientific literature is necessary to ensure that new discoveries are made as quickly as feasible. It's the right thing to do, given that taxpayers fund this research." The ASCB represents 11,000 members and publishes the highly ranked peer-reviewed journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell.
However, some hurdles remain before the policy becomes law. Library Lournal states:
The bill must now be reconciled with the House Appropriations Bill, which contains a similar public access provision. Negotiators from the House and Senate are expected to meet this fall. The final, consolidated bill will then have to pass the House and the Senate before being delivered to the President, where it is expected to be vetoed. Although the public access provision enjoys broad support, and the LHHS appropriations bill passed with hefty margins, the House bill passed with 279 votes, 11 short of the number needed to override a presidential veto.
Posted by stemp003 at October 26, 2007 2:45 PM