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 | Amid Dramatic Last Minute Politicking, NIH Public Policy Access Is Imperiled
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) helped delay voting on the LHHS (Labor, Health & Human Services) appropriations bill by introducing two amendments favored by the publishing industry late on October 19, one of which would strike a new public access policy from the 2007 bill. Inhofe's first proposal, amendment 3416, would leave in place the current voluntary NIH policy, while a second amendment, 3417, would eliminate a researchers' obligation to deposit NIH-funded articles in PubMed Central, to be released within a year of publication, whenever it conflicts with "the policies of the publishers who have conducted the peer review and accepted the manuscripts for publication."
Though the public access policy has enjoyed strong bipartisan support, the late amendments found library and public access advocacy groups again frantically working the phones and writing letters to reiterate their support. The Alliance for Taxpayer Access, a coalition including libraries, said Inhofe's amendments essentially kill lawmakers' efforts to implement a meaningful public access policy, and urged supporters to contact their senators. In a letter to lawmakers, advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International said Inhofe's amendments were "naked attempts to eliminate public access to government funded research, in order to protect a handful of publishers." The last-minute amendments recall the NIH efforts of 2004 and 2005, when the agency attempted to mandate deposit of manuscripts and a six-month embargo only to see the policy gutted at the last moment.
Meanwhile, even if the bill passes with the NIH language intact, the process is still far from over. The bill is expected to be vetoed by the president. Under heavy lobbying from the publishing industry, the administration's Statement of Administration Policy specifically notes the NIH public access policy, which could give opponents yet another opportunity to fight the language.
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Max Planck Society Dumps Springer Deal Over Pricing
The Max Planck Society (MPS), a major German research organization, issued a strongly worded statement this week to announce it was cancelling access to Springer's online collection of journals over pricing. The cancellation will take effect as of December 31, 2007. MPS Vice President Kurt Mehlhorn said negotiations to extend the deal failed because, according to an MPS evaluation based on factors including usage and comparisons with other publishers, Springer was intent on charging "approximately double the price" the organization regarded as "reasonable."
Under MPS's current agreement, researchers have full access to the approximately 1200 electronic journals published by Springer. MPS officials said that in the absence of an agreement it would piece together access to Springer journals in a "more cost-effective" manner.
The public announcement represents a rather extraordinary moment. While it's not at all uncommon for budget-pressured academic libraries to cancel or scale back their journal deals, the Max Planck Society is an extremely well-funded, world-leading research institution with more than 12,000 staff members, 9000 Ph.D. students, post-docs, guest scientists and researchers, and student assistants working in over 80 affiliated research institutes. To have their price point broken, MPS officials said, represents "a watershed" in how the Society would deal with "various globally-active scientific publishing houses." Open access advocate Peter Suber said the announcement was indeed big news. "For the combination of an affluent institution and large hit list," he told the LJ Academic Newswire, "the Max Planck cancellation may be unprecedented."
In a statement, MPS officials suggested the breakdown in negotiations with Springer was representative of "extreme price developments in the supply of information, as well as usage restrictions," and that scientific organizations throughout the world should "rethink" their information policies. "If publishers have the market power to effectively implement such prices and if legislators are unwilling to subject such inappropriate behavior to legal controls, the only way left open to science will be to take matters into their own hands."
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| Library of Congress, UNESCO Sign World Digital Library Agreement
Less than a year after Librarian of Congress James H. Billington detailed for international librarians at UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) headquarters in Paris initial plans to create a global digital library, Billington returned to Paris last week to announce that LC and UNESCO have signed a deal pledging "cooperative efforts" to make the World Digital Library web site a reality.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Library of Congress and UNESCO will convene "working groups of experts and other stakeholders" to develop guidelines, "enlist new partners," and secure the necessary support, financial and otherwise, from both "private and public sources." LC, UNESCO, and five other partner institutions (the Bibliotheca Alexandrina of Alexandria, Egypt; the National Library of Brazil; the National Library of Egypt; the National Library of Russia; and the Russian State Library) demonstrated a "prototype" of the project to national delegations at the UNESCO General Conference, but the World Digital Library web site will not launch publicly until late 2008 or 2009.
In 2006, Billington told UNESCO delegates his vision was to "create an online encyclopedia, freely available over the Internet, of important and interesting cultural objects from the world's countries and civilizations" that would reside in a "large, online repository that can be searched and used in different ways by teachers, librarians, scholars, and the general public." Another key aspect of the project, he added, was to "build digital library capabilities in the developing world, so that all countries and regions of the world can participate and be represented in the World Digital Library."
The prototype unveiled last week for the UNESCO delegates functions in the six U.N. languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, plus Portuguese. It also features search and browse functions by place, time, topic, and contributing institution. The prototype was created through "a consultative process" between UNESCO and IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions), comprising institutions in more than 40 countries.
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| University of South Carolina Buying Burns Archive
The University of South Carolina's (USC) Thomas Cooper Library approved a $135,000 purchase on October 18 of a major archive of Scottish poet Robert Burns manuscripts from top Burns scholar and USC professor G. Ross Roy and his wife, Lucie. Though the archive was appraised at $270,000, the Roys agreed to donate the other half of its value as a gift to USC. The archive consists of 11 Burns manuscripts, letters about him, and other items, which are being added to USC's massive Burns collection, already the largest—more than 4000 items—in the United States. Roy contends that only London's British Library and a few libraries in the poet's native Scotland can rival USC's Burns holdings. The university and Roy will host a 2009 conference to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Burns's birth.
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| Call for Nominations: Movers & Shakers 2008
The editors of Library Journal need your help in identifying the emerging leaders in the library world. Our seventh annual Movers & Shakers supplement will profile 50-plus up-and-coming individuals from across the United States and Canada who are innovative, creative, and making a difference. From librarians to vendors to others who work in the library field, Movers & Shakers 2008 will celebrate the new professionals who are moving our libraries ahead. Movers & Shakers 2008 will be distributed with the March 15 issue of Library Journal.
Deadline for submissions is extended to November 15, 2007! You can nominate someone here (scroll down the page).
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