Major society publisher announces support for public access to scientific literature

[Jennifer McLennan <jennifer@arl.org>]

[N.B. from the Moderator:  A large number of society (and other?) 
publishers, for example, very visibly the HighWire Press group, 
make their journal content freely available a few months after 
publication and have been doing so for several years, since well 
before talk of mandated free access. How does ASCB's providing 
delayed free access argue in some particular way for the FRPAA 
bill when other societies providing this kind of access don't 
make that same argument?  Perhaps someone from ASCB could respond 
and clarify further?  Thank you]

***

Alliance for Taxpayer Access
www.taxpayeraccess.org

Media Advisory
For Immediate Release
February 6, 2007

Contacts:
Jennifer McLennan
Director of Communications,
SPARC
jennifer@arl.org
(202) 296-2296 ext. 121

Kevin Wilson
Public Policy Director,
ASCB
kwilson@ascb.org
(301) 347-9300

Major society publisher announces support for public access to 
scientific literature

Washington, DC (Feb. 6, 2007)

The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), a non-profit 
scientific society of over 11,000 members and publisher of the 
high-impact monthly journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell, has 
announced its "Position on Public Access to Scientific 
Literature," calling for free public access to federally funded 
research within six months of publication. ASCB has provided free 
access (after a two-month embargo) to research published in its 
journals since 2001 and has experienced no adverse impact on its 
finances.

The ASCB statement, which was announced in a January 31, 2007 
press release, reads:

ASCB Position on Public Access to Scientific Literature

The ASCB believes strongly that barriers to scientific 
communication slow scientific progress. The more widely 
scientific results are disseminated, the more readily they can be 
understood, applied, and built upon. The sooner findings are 
shared, the faster they will lead to new scientific insights and 
breakthroughs. This conviction has motivated the ASCB to provide 
free access to all of the research articles in Molecular Biology 
of the Cell two months after publication, which it has done since 
2001. The articles are available both on the journal's website 
and in the National Library of Medicine's online archive, PubMed 
Central.

The vast majority of the biomedical research conducted at 
American universities and colleges is funded by taxpayers. The 
ASCB believes that taxpayers are best served when all scientists, 
educators, physicians, and members of the public - including 
patients and their families - have access to publicly funded 
research results. So long as significant access barriers remain, 
taxpayers are not fully benefiting from the work that they fund. 
With the proliferation of networked technology, we have an 
unprecedented and cost-effective means to overcome such barriers. 
For the first time, it is possible and practical to offer free 
access to every potential user. It is incumbent upon us, as 
scientists and citizens, to take full advantage of this 
opportunity.

Some publishers argue that providing free access to their 
journal's content will catastrophically erode their revenue base. 
The experience of many successful research journals demonstrates 
otherwise; these journals make their online content freely 
available after a short embargo period that protects subscription 
revenue. For example, as noted above, the content of Molecular 
Biology of the Cell is free to all after only two months, yet the 
journal remains not only financially sound, but profitable. The 
data clearly show that free access and profitability are not 
mutually exclusive.

Our goal should be to make research articles freely available as 
soon as feasible so that science and the public benefit from 
their expanded use and application. At the same time, it is 
important that nonprofit societies and other publishers generate 
sufficient revenues to sustain the costs of reviewing and 
publishing articles. We believe that a six-month embargo period 
represents a reasonable compromise between the financial 
requirements of supporting a journal and the need for access to 
current research.

For these reasons, the ASCB supports efforts to require that the 
results of federally funded biomedical research be made freely 
available to the public, no more than six months after they are 
published.

[statement ends]

The statement, which is available online at 
http://ascb.org/index.cfm?navid=10&id=1968&tcode=nws3, bolsters 
the case for a mandatory National Institutes of Health public 
access policy and for passage of The Federal Research Public 
Access Act, a measure that would require federal agencies that 
fund over $100 million in annual external research to make 
manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from that 
research publicly available via the Internet within six months of 
publication. The bill was introduced last year by Senator John 
Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and awaiting 
reintroduction in the 110th Congress (For further information 
about the legislation, see http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa/).

###

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient, 
academic, research, and publishing entities that support open 
public access to the results of federally funded research, 
including passage of the Federal Research Public Access Act. The 
Alliance was formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles 
on taxpayer-funded research become fully accessible and available 
online at no extra cost to the American public. Details on the 
ATA may be found at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.

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