In New Letter, Library Associations Voice Strong Opposition to Anti-NIH Bill
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 2/17/2009 2:12:00 PM
- Ten organizations craft initial response to H.R. 801
- Letter sets tone for new battle
- Law is bad for economy, transparency
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A coalition of major library organizations, public advocates, and research organizations has issued a letter, including an FAQ, voicing its strong opposition to the second coming of the controversial Fair Copyright in Research Works Act. The bill, reintroduced in January as H.R. 801, would bar federal agencies from requiring any transfer of copyright in return for government funding—specifically, it would reverse the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) 2007 mandate requiring grantees to deposit their final articles in the PubMed Central repository, to be made free to the public within a year. In rallying librarians to opposing the measure, the letter strikes two timely chords with the new administration: economics, and transparency in government.
“The U.S. government funds research with the expectation that new ideas and discoveries will propel science, stimulate the economy, and improve the lives and welfare of Americans” the letter states. “Public support for science is enhanced when the public directly sees the benefits from our nation’s investment in scientific research.” H.R. 801, the letter argues, “would reverse the only U.S. policy for public access to research, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and make it impossible for other agencies to enact similar policies.”
The letter also attacked the very premise of H.R.801, a bill strongly lobbied for by the publishing industry, debunking publishers’ claims that the NIH Public Access Policy undermines the rights of the author and conflicts with U.S. copyright law. “As library organizations and allies we fully respect copyright law and the protection it affords content creators, content owners, and content users,” the letter states, adding that “NIH-funded research is copyrightable and copyright belongs to the author.” Last year, some 48 legal experts signed a letter to congress agreeing there was no copyright issue with the NIH mandate.
The letter was drafted by the American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, American Society for Cell Biology, the Association of College and Research Libraries, association of Research Libraries, the Greater Western Library Alliance, Public Knowledge, the Public Library of Science SPARC, and SLA (the Special Libraries Association).
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