Bill Would Mandate Access to More Federally Funded Research
-- Library Journal, 5/9/2006
A coalition of library groups has applauded the introduction of the "Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006," introduced May 2 by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). If passed, the bill would require federal agencies with "extramural research portfolios over $100 million" to make the electronic versions of peer-reviewed articles publicly available via the Internet within six months of publication. The bill would significantly expand the weakened and ineffective policy implemented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) last year that merely requested NIH-funded researchers deposit their papers within a year after publication.
In addition to the NIH, the bill would cover a host of other agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Transportation, as well as EPA, NASA, and NSF. Unlike the NIH policy, however, which specified that papers be deposited into the PubMed Central repository, the Cornyn/Lieberman bill does not specify how the information would be made available online. While library groups applauded the effort, it remains unlikely that any real action will happen this year. "The introduction of the legislation sends an important signal to these federal agencies that there is strong congressional interest in public access policies to federally funded research," said Association of Research Libraries associate executive director Prue Adler. "There are strong voices of support in diverse constituencies that will be actively working on this legislation."
