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 | After Years of Effort, Mandatory NIH Public Access Policy Passes Congress
In a victory for libraries, the Senate on October 23 passed an appropriations bill that included a mandatory public access directive for research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Despite heavy lobbying from publishers against the public access provision, as well as White House opposition and the threat of two last-second amendments to gut it, the legislative battle culminated yesterday with overwhelming approval of the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill (75-19). If enacted with the NIH language fully intact, the law would require NIH researchers to deposit their papers in the NIH's PubMed Central database to be publicly available within a year after publication.
The legislative process, however, is far from over. The bill must now be reconciled with the House Appropriations Bill, which contains a similar public access provision. Negotiators from the House and Senate are expected to meet this fall. The final, consolidated bill will then have to pass the House and the Senate before being delivered to the President, where it is expected to be vetoed. Although the public access provision enjoys broad support, and the LHHS appropriations bill passed with hefty margins, the House bill passed with 279 votes, 11 short of the number needed to override a presidential veto.
Nevertheless, SPARC executive director Heather Joseph said even with many hurdles remaining, passage by Congress was "a milestone."
Indeed, getting a public access policy at NIH through Congress has been a three-year odyssey for SPARC, an early and integral champion of the policy. The initially proposed NIH policy was introduced in 2004 as a mandatory policy with a six-month embargo. In a bitter setback, it was gutted at the eleventh hour, and implemented in 2005 as a voluntary measure. Lawmakers and advocates, however, vowed they would monitor the policy's effectiveness. By 2006, the policy was failing so spectacularly (less than five percent of individual investigators deposited papers) that it no doubt helped marshal the heavy bipartisan support for the revised NIH policy passed on Tuesday.
Although still a ways from implementation, the effort to push a public access policy for NIH through Congress has already succeeded in fostering a wider discourse about access. For example, Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) introduced in 2006 the Federal Research Public Access Act, (FRPAA), a bill that would require all federal agencies that fund over $100 million in research annually to offer public access. While that bill has stalled, a successful NIH policy could lead to its resurgence. Also, the attention paid to public access has influenced the policies of private funding agencies worldwide, such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in the United States and the Research Councils U.K. (RCUK) in Europe, which have made open access a condition of their grants.
Publishers, meanwhile, remain opposed to the NIH policy, contending it could undermine scholarly publishing, and they will likely have more opportunities to fight the public access mandate, either during reconciliation and/or if the LHHS appropriations bill is vetoed. They have also laid the groundwork for a legal challenge to the suit centered on copyright. While copyright experts doubt that claim could ultimately prevail, it could nevertheless delay implementation, giving publishers another chance to organize opposition in 2009.
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OCA to Scan Orphan Works; Publishers Float Orphan Works Solution
It's beginning to look like there could be movement on orphan works in 2008 after a coalition of three professional publishing associations released the broad strokes of an understanding on their use. Separately, the Open Content Alliance said it would begin scanning some for distribution through a groundbreaking digital interlibrary loan system.
In a release last week during the Open Content Alliance's annual meeting, OCA officials said the Boston Public Library, the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, and Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City, in conjunction with the Internet Archive, would scan works that were out-of-print but in-copyright and pioneer "a digital interlibrary loan service" around them. "We believe this can be a tremendously valuable way to increase scholarly and public access to hard-to-find resources," OCA officials noted in a statement. "For every librarian who has received a request for a book that is out-of-print (as opposed to out-of-stock), this initiative will provide a mechanism to meet the library patron's needs." The announcement marks a departure of sorts, as the OCA has thus far stuck to scanning materials in the public domain or works with permission.
On the O'Reilly Radar blog, the University of California's Peter Brantley called the announcement "noteworthy." "[It] could be reasonably understood to be a reassertion of inter-library loan rights under the first-sale doctrine," he said. Brantley praised the idea, suggesting it would allow librarians to offer access to millions of orphan works currently collecting dust under "restrained but eminently useful" terms, although the devil, he conceded, is clearly in the details, including engineering "technical and policy systems which acceptably minimize risk of digital abuse."
Professional and scholarly publishers meanwhile issued a release of their own this week stating their current position on orphan works. The draft statement outlines an emerging consensus among publishers that users who conduct a reasonably "diligent" copyright search would be subject only to "a normal license fee and will not be subject to any statutory, punitive or special fees or damages," should a copyright holder later emerge. The statement also put forth publisher's contention that "a private solution," as opposed to government intervention through legislation was the best course of action.
The release, issued on behalf of three trade associations, the www.alpsp.org (ALPSP), the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM), and the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division (PSP) of the Association of American Publishers was billed as a "further step towards establishing clear rules for users of copyrighted works who cannot locate the owners of such works."
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| ALA, ARL Want Congress to Require Warrants for Searches in Libraries
The American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) are seeking language that would ensure that law enforcement requests for library patron records or the surveillance of library users through library networks go through judicial review. In a position statement regarding the pending RESTORE Act and other proposals to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), ALA and ARL seek to ensure that libraries are not declared "electronic communication services" and thus are not subject to National Security Letters (NSLs), which allow the FBI to gather information without going before a judge.
"Libraries do not seek to thwart national security efforts nor to be safe havens for those engaging in illegal activities," reads the ALA/ARL statement. "However, because the mission of libraries is so closely bound to our Nation's first amendment freedoms, there should be judicial review of law enforcement demands for library records or communications."
While the 2005 reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act defines "electronic communication service" as "any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications," leading Senators voting for the reauthorization stated they meant to exempt libraries. The FBI, however, has disagreed, reading the statute literally.
The RESTORE Act, which passed the House Judiciary Committee 20-14, would allow the government to compel "communications providers" to provide assistance in the warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. persons abroad. That could affect libraries in the United States, if they provide access to such non-U.S. users abroad, such as via distance learning. While ALA/ARL official concede that libraries "rely on a global network of communications facilities and services," they note, "this should not make libraries into communications service providers as proposed under the FISA modernization efforts today."
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| ALA Names Presidential Candidates for 2009-2010
An academic librarian, Camila Alire, and a school librarian, J. Linda Williams, both library educators, will compete for the 2009-2010 presidency of the American Library Association (ALA). Camila Alire, dean emerita at the University of New Mexico and Colorado State University (Fort Collins), currently teaches in the Simmons College Ph.D. program in managerial leadership and in the San Jose State University Library & Information Science executive MLIS managerial leadership program. A former member of the ALA Council and Executive Board, she chairs the ALA Committee on Legislation and chaired ALA's Nominating Committee, Committee on Education, and American Libraries Advisory Committee. Alire is also a past president of the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL), as well as president of the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking (REFORMA).
Williams serves as coordinator of library media services for Anne Arundel County public schools in Annapolis, MD, and is currently serving a three-year term as an ALA Councilor-at-Large and a member of the Council Budget Analysis and Review Committee. She has chaired the ALA Membership Committee and the Council Policy Monitoring Committee and is a former board member and president of the American Association of School Librarians. She has also chaired the Library Administration and Management Association's (LAMA) Program Planning Committee and served on the LAMA Board of Directors. She teaches at the University of Maryland, College of Library and Information Services. The election will be held in spring 2008.
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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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Best Sellers in African History, February 2007–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13 digit ISBNs in brackets)
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Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Beah, Ishmael
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2007. ISBN 0374105235 [9780374105235]. $22.00
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Darfur's Sorrow: A History of Destruction and Genocide
Daly, M.W.
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521876184 [9780521876186]. $75.00
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History of Sub-Saharan Africa
Collins, Robert O.
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521867460 [9780521867467]. $75.00
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Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide
Prunier, Gerard
Cornell University Press
2007. ISBN 0801446023 [9780801446023]. $24.00
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African City: A History
Freund, Bill
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521821096 [9780521821094]. $75.00
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Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan
Boddy, Janice Patricia
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691123047 [9780691123042]. $65.00
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Dr. Livingstone, I Presume? Missionaries, Journalists, Explorers, and Empire
Pettitt, Clare
Harvard University Press
2007. ISBN 0674024877 [9780674024878]. $22.95
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Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France's Role in the Rwandan Genocide
Wallis, Andrew
I. B. Tauris
2006. ISBN 1845112474 [9781845112479]. $35.00
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Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade
St. Clair, William
Bluebridge
2007. ISBN 1933346051 [9781933346052]. $24.95
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African History: A Very Short Introduction
Parker, John
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0192802488 [9780192802484]. $9.95
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Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa
O'Malley, Padraig
Viking
2007. ISBN 0670852333 [9780670852338]. $32.95
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Buying Freedom: The Ethics and Economics of Slave Redemption
Appiah, Kwame Anthony
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691130094 [9780691130095]. $59.50
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Anthropology and the Bushman
Barnard, Alan
Berg
2007. ISBN 184520428x [9781845204280]. $89.95
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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
Godwin, Peter
Little, Brown
2007. ISBN 0316158941 [9780316158947]. $24.99
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Too Close To the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton
Wheeler, Sara
Random House
2007. ISBN 1400060699 [9781400060696]. $27.95
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Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah: Epic Heroism in Africa and the Diaspora
Rahman, Ahmad A.
Palgrave Macmillan
2007. ISBN 1403965692 [9781403965691]. $65.00
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Shattered Dreams? An Oral History of the South African AIDS Epidemic
Oppenheimer, Gerald M.
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195307305 [9780195307306]. $35.00
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Beyond Words: Discourse And Critical Agency In Africa
Apter, Andrew H.
University Of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226023516 [9780226023519]. $40.00
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Mother Africa, Father Marx: Women's Writing Of Mozambique, 1948-2002
Owen, Hilary
Bucknell University Press
2007. ISBN 0838756573 [9780838756577]. $55.00
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Very Brave or Very Foolish? Memoirs of an African Democrat
Masire, Quetta Beguile Joni
Ed. by Stephen R. Lewis Jr.
Palgrave Macmillan
2006. ISBN 9991240489 [9789991240480]. $35.00
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