Should you be able to read research you've helped to fund? A few years ago, Congress decided this was a good idea, and approved an access policy that makes most taxpayer-funded research freely available online within 12 months of publication. This modest step toward open access — which, as I've written before, is vital to healthy science and science policy — has proven a huge boon to researchers and also to those of us who write about science, while leaving most publisher profits quite healthy.
Now, however, as UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist Michael Eisen relates, a proposed bill threatens to reverse this policy:
Eisen supplies a rather discouraging chart:
He suggests you write your reps.
Some sharp coverage elsewhere:
The Tree of Life: YHGTBFKM: Ecological Society of America letter regarding #OpenAccess is disturbing
Scientists, the White House seeks your opinion on Open Access - bjoern.brembs.blog
Cameron Neylon:: Time for scholarly publishers to disavow the AAP
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Photo by capturedmoment1 via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Related:
Michael Eisen: Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded Research
Free Science, One Paper at a Time (My feature on open science)