NYT on Cornyn-Lieberman

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

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