Of possible interest.
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May 8, 2006
Some Publishers of Scholarly Journals Dislike Bill to Require Online
Access to Articles
By SARA IVRY
Scholarly publishing has never been a big business. But it could take
a financial hit if a proposed federal law is enacted, opening
taxpayer-financed research to the public, according to some critics in
academic institutions.
The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, proposed last week by
Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and John
Cornyn, Republican of Texas, would require 11 government agencies to
publish online any articles that contained research financed with
federal grants. If enacted, the measure would require that the
articles be accessible online without charge within six months of
their initial publication in a scholarly journal.
"Not everybody has a library next door. I don't mean to be flippant
about it, but this gives access to anybody," said Donald Stewart, a
spokesman for Senator Cornyn. "The genesis of this was his interest in
open government and finding ways to reform our Freedom of Information
laws and taxpayer access to federally funded work."
Some members of the scholarly publishing industry are wary of the
legislation. Howard H. Garrison, the director of public affairs at the
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, an
organization whose members collectively publish approximately 60
journals, argued that the legislation would weaken the connection
between the journals and their readers and that journals could lose
subscribers and ad revenue if articles were available online.
"People won't be able to gauge how many people will be reading the
articles and that has ramifications for advertising, promotion," he
said. "Does it reach 1,000 scientists, 2,000 or 50? If the articles
are on a government Web site, your readership may be halved."
Scientific data is easily misinterpreted, said Joann Boughman,
executive vice president of the American Society of Human Genetics,
publisher of The American Journal of Human Genetics. "Consumers
themselves are saying, 'We have the right to know these things as
quickly as we can.' That is not incorrect. However, wherever there is
a benefit, there is a risk associated with it."
A year ago, the National Institutes of Health introduced a policy
encouraging scientists who had received N.I.H. financing to submit
published articles within a year to a central database at the National
Library of Medicine. Fewer than 4 percent of researchers have complied.
Catherine McKenna Ribeiro, the deputy press secretary for Senator
Lieberman, said mandatory compliance would "foster information
sharing, prevent duplication of research efforts, and generate new
lines of scientific inquiry." She said in an e-mail message that the
bill would, in effect, allow agencies to better monitor what
publications were a result of their grants.
Betsy L. Humphreys, the deputy director of the National Library of
Medicine, said she was not surprised that researchers had not always
complied with N.I.H.'s request. "I think it's like anything else in
the lives of busy people who prefer to spend their time doing
science," she said.
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Copyright 2006 The New York Times