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-----Original Message-----<BR>
From: insight-users-bounces@itk.org <insight-users-bounces@itk.org><BR>
To: Insight-users@itk.org <Insight-users@itk.org><BR>
Sent: Fri Sep 10 13:10:59 2004<BR>
Subject: [Insight-users] NIH Proposes 6-Month Public Access to Papers<BR>
<BR>
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Science, Vol 305, Issue 5690, 1548 , 10 September 2004<BR>
NIH Proposes 6-Month Public Access to Papers<BR>
Jocelyn Kaiser<BR>
<BR>
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released a draft policy<BR>
aimed at increasing public access to the results of NIH-funded research.<BR>
The proposal issued 3 September in the NIH Guide* would require grantees<BR>
to deposit copies of their papers in NIH's free PubMed Central archive<BR>
once they have been accepted by a journal. Manuscripts would be posted<BR>
online 6 months after publication.<BR>
<BR>
In July, a congressional spending panel recommended that NIH post<BR>
NIH-funded manuscripts within 6 months of publication, or immediately if<BR>
NIH grants were used to pay publication costs. The language, part of<BR>
NIH's pending 2005 budget, triggered frenzied lobbying on all sides.<BR>
Librarians, patient organizations, and scientists who think taxpayers<BR>
should have easier access to NIH-funded research urged NIH to follow the<BR>
House language. Commercial publishers and many scientific societies<BR>
lobbied against a mandatory plan, saying it could bankrupt many journals.<BR>
<BR>
NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, who has held meetings recently with<BR>
interested groups, told scientists last week that 6 months was<BR>
"reasonable" (Science, 3 September, p. 1386). The draft policy is<BR>
similar to the House language: Investigators will submit their final,<BR>
peer-reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central. Journals can ask NIH to<BR>
replace the manuscript with the published paper, sooner than 6 months if<BR>
they wish. NIH plans to take comments for 60 days and will also post the<BR>
draft policy in the Federal Register.<BR>
<BR>
"We're strongly behind it," says Richard Johnson of the Scholarly<BR>
Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. His group "would have<BR>
preferred immediate access, but we see this as an important step forward."<BR>
<BR>
Scientific societies had a mixed reaction. Alan Leshner, executive<BR>
director of AAAS (which publishes Science), calls the policy "a<BR>
reasonable compromise" but says it "could pose significant risk for some<BR>
scientific societies." And Martin Frank, executive director of the<BR>
American Physiological Society, calls the plan "an unnecessary<BR>
expenditure of federal funds for a redundant repository of peer-reviewed<BR>
literature." He notes that most journals already provide back articles<BR>
for around $5 to $30, or for free after a certain period. Frank also<BR>
wonders how PubMed Central will keep track of manuscripts submitted<BR>
separately by co-authors of the same paper. "It could be chaos out<BR>
there," he warns.<BR>
<BR>
The Association of American Publishers (AAP), which is also worried<BR>
about the policy's impact on free markets, plans to take its objections<BR>
to senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), chair and<BR>
ranking member, respectively, of the Senate appropriations committee for<BR>
NIH, which will take up the spending bill once it passes the House. "We<BR>
think there are a lot of questions that should be answered," says Allan<BR>
Adler, AAP vice president for legal and governmental affairs. However,<BR>
last week Specter told The Washington Post that he does not intend to<BR>
intervene.<BR>
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