House Committee Would Require Open Access to NIH-Backed Research

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Chronicle of Higher Education
Monday, June 19, 2006

House Committee Would Require Open Access to NIH-Backed Research
By ANNE K. WALTERS

"A little-noticed provision in a bill passed last week by the 
House Appropriations Committee would require federally sponsored 
researchers to make their findings more widely available to the 
public.

The provision appears in an appropriations bill for the 
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education 
for the 2007 fiscal year, which begins on October 1. It would 
require all researchers supported by the National Institutes of 
Health to submit electronic versions of papers reporting their 
findings to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's 
online system, and they would have to do so within one year of 
publication in a scholarly journal. "

snip

"The bill now faces a vote by the entire House of 
Representatives, and Ms. Meredith (Vice President PSP divisions 
of the AAP) said the publishers' group would try to get the 
provision removed on the House floor.

A separate bill, introduced last month in the Senate, would 
require all federal agencies that distribute more than 
$100-million in research funds to establish online libraries 
where researchers would have to place their findings with six 
months of publication"

Chuck Hamaker
Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
Atkins Library
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223