SPARC Applauds Publisher’s NIH Plan to Offer Links, But Long-Term Conerns Remain
SPARC executive Heather Joseph this week praised a linking plan by 57 nonprofit publishers, signatories of the DC principles for free access to research, saying it was an excellent plan on its merits–but not necessarily an alternative to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) public access policy. “This is the same proposal they made a year-and-half ago,” Joseph told the LJ Academic Newswire. “It’s a good plan, but it doesn’t go the extra step we need it to go.” That step, Joseph explained, is “access now and in perpetuity” for all publicly funded research.
“The problem with linking out from the PubMed site to publishers’ sites is that is does not create a dependable repository. It depends on the largesse of publishers and, as well-intentioned as they are, there is no guarantee they will be there tomorrow,” Joseph said. In a conversation with the LJ Academic Newswire, American Physiological Association executive director Martin Frank said publishers suggested that the National Library of Medicine (NLM) serve as the repository for research. Frank said that publishers would gladly assist NLM in collecting, preserving and making accessible research output in a library setting, as opposed to the NIH’s free dissemination of journal articles via PubMed Central, the NIH’s repository. The NIH plan enacted in May “requests” NIH-funded authors submit their final manuscript (as opposed to the final, edited article) in PubMed Central within a year. That plan has been heavily criticized by both opponents and proponents of the initial NIH policy proposal, which would have “required” deposit of the final manuscript within six months of publication.
[Library Journal Academic Newswire (TM), The Publishing Report, November 3, 2005]
