On December 16, 2011, Representatives Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced The Research Works Act (H.R. 3699) which would turn back the NIH Public Access Policy. The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. To learn more about the bill visit the Library of Congress.

Some publishers, taxpayer groups, researchers, and professional organizations are in opposition to the Research Works act.

• Nature Publishing Group and Digital Science issued a joint statement on the Research Works Act
• The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publishers of Science journal titles issued a statement of opposition
• The Lancet published an editorial “The Research Works Act: a damaging threat to science”
• Open Access publishers BioMed Central and PLos have also issued statements
• The Alliance for Taxpayer Access and the Medical Library Association both issued a call to action urging people to contact their representatives.

Elsevier, a main supporter of the Research Works Act has come under scrutiny and boycott in recent months.  The publisher has also gained the attention of Forbes magazine.  On Janurary 28, 2012, Tim Worstall from Forbes contributed this piece to Forbes “Elsevier’s Publishing Model Might be About to Go Up in Smoke”.   Wondering what Elsevier has to say about all of this?  In an article in The Chronicle for Higher Education, the publisher offers its side of the story.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Items of Potential Interest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.