Re: URGENT support for NIH public access policy

[Guest guest]

This is very important, please read;

In a message dated 11/11/2004 5:38:41 PM Pacific Standard Time,

.Crowe@... writes:

The US National Institutes of Health has a proposal that all published

reports of NIH-funded research should be freely available to the public. If you

support this, you can submit comments via one of the URLs below.

-- Crowe

Dear Open Access Supporter,

On September 3, 2004 the NIH posted for comment an " Enhanced Public Access

Policy. " This policy would require the recipients of NIH research grants to

provide to the National Library of Medicine a digital copy of the final

accepted manuscript (or the published version itself) of every published report

resulting from NIH-funded research, so that the research results can be made

freely available to scientists and the public through PubMed Central within six

months of publication.

We are writing now to urge you to submit a comment in support of this

proposal right away. The deadline for comments is just a few days away

- November 16th.

The text of the proposal is available at:

_http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-064.html_

(http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-064.html)

You can post comments here:

_http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/public_access/add.htm_

(http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/public_access/add.htm)

A powerful lobby of publishers and scientific societies is trying to block

this plan. They claim that this is an unwarranted government intrusion on

their business practices. In fact, the NIH policy has no authority over

publishers - its rules apply only to the scientists who voluntarily accept

grants

from the NIH. The publishers remain free to operate their businesses as they

always have and to compete in the free market to provide the best service and

value to their authors and readers. But the publishers are wrong in arguing

that they are entitled to monopoly control over access to the results of

research that American taxpayers have paid for. On the contrary, the taxpayers

who

fund the research, and the scientists who carry it out, have every right to

ask the grant recipients to provide open access to the published results.

And they have every right to expect that the benefits of the research will

be amplified by making it freely and widely available for others to use and to

build on.

Let the NIH know that you support this policy proposal. Even better

wuld be to tell the NIH that you would prefer an even stronger policy that

requires full and immediate open access to all papers resulting from

NIH-funded research. It is important that the NIH and other policymakers

understand

that this is not (as some publishers would have them believe) a radical

proposal destined to destroy scientific publishing, but a thoughtful compromise

that

balances the desire for better access with the commercial interests of

scientific publishers.

More information about the policy is available at

_http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm_

(http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm)

_http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/_ (http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/)

Notable statements of support for the plan include:

An open letter to the US Congress signed by 25 Nobel Laureates:

_http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/bof.html_

(http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/bof.html)

The Council of the National Academy of Sciences:

_http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/s09162004?OpenDocument_

(http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/s09162004?OpenDocument)

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Harold Varmus

Brown

Eisen

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