News: Battle for free access to government-funded research introduced, again

The following article is quoted from the LJ Academic Newswire.

"The battle for free public access to government-funded research will rear its head again in 2006. And this time, it's Congressional. On December 14, 2005, Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) introduced legislation to establish the American Center for Cures within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Included in that bill, known as the CURES act, is an aggressive provision that to help make taxpayer-funded biomedical research available to all potential users. Although Congress directed the NIH to draft a policy to achieve that goal in 2005, it proved to be a controversial issue. What resulted was a weak policy that simply requested NIH-funded research be deposited into PubMed Central within a year after publication. A provision of the CURES Act, however, if passed, would require research funded by a number of government agencies be made available within six months. SPARC director Heather Joseph told the LJ Academic Newswire that library groups were "gratified" to see that Congress took universal access to research into account when crafting this bill. "The aim of the bill is to speed cures by removing barriers," Joseph noted. "One of those barriers is access to research."

"Joseph said the bill's provisions are both broader and more stringent than the current NIH policy—the debate over which was the source of much consternation in 2005. Under the CURES Act, deposit of research articles funded in part or whole by government agencies, including Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), including NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, would be required, as opposed to requested, and within up to six months. In addition, the law would set penalties for non-compliance. While the legislation mentions PubMed Central as a repository, Joseph said the bill does apparently leave the door open for deposit in any publicly accessible repository. Joseph said it was unclear when Congress would begin to consider the bill in earnest. While publishers will likely find much to oppose in the bill, a coalition of library groups issued a statement praising the bill and promising support. The coalition is made up of the American Association of Law Libraries, the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Medical Library Association, and the Special Libraries Association."

Posted by lpray at January 9, 2006 12:34 PM