"In 1836, Anthony Panizzi, who later became principal librarian of the British Museum, gave evidence before a parliamentary select committee. At that time, he was only first assistant librarian, but even then he had an ambitious vision for what would one day became the British Library. He told the committee: I want a poor student to have the same means of indulging his learned curiosity, of following his rational pursuits, of consulting the same authorities, of fathoming the most intricate inquiry as the richest man in the kingdom, as far as books go, and I contend that the government is bound to give him the most liberal and unlimited assistance in this respect... The example of The Pirate Bay shows that the current game of domain whack-a-mole is not one that the lawyers are likely to win. But even if they did, it is too late. Science magazine's analysis of Sci-Hub downloads reveals that the busiest city location is Tehran. It wrote: "Much of that is from Iranians using programs to automatically download huge swathes of Sci-Hub’s papers to make a local mirror of the site. Rahimi, an engineering student in Tehran, confirms this. 'There are several Persian sites similar to Sci-Hub'." In this, people are following in the footsteps of Aaron Swartz, with the difference that we don't know what he intended to do with the millions of articles he had downloaded, whereas those mirroring Sci-Hub certainly intend to share the contents widely. It would be surprising if others around the world, especially in emerging economies, are not busily downloading all 45 million papers to do the same."
Showing posts with label public access to taxpayer-funded research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public access to taxpayer-funded research. Show all posts
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Open access: All human knowledge is there—so why can’t everybody access it?; Ars Technica, 6/7/16
Glyn Moody, Ars Technica; Open access: All human knowledge is there—so why can’t everybody access it? :
Friday, July 3, 2009
Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) Reintroduced in Senate; Library Journal, 7/2/09
Andrew Richard Albanese, Publishers Weekly via Library Journal; Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) Reintroduced in Senate:
"It looks like there’s a new copyright battle brewing in Congress after U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Joe Lieberman, (I-CT) reintroduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), a bill that would require every federal department and agency with an annual extramural research budget of $100 million or more to make their research available to the public within six months of publication.
The bill sets up a direct showdown—or perhaps a stalemate—with Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), who in February of this year, introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (HR 801) an opposing bill supported by publishers that would prohibit the federal government from requiring copyright transfer in connection with receiving federal funding.
Reintroduction
This is the second time around for both bills. The publisher-supported HR 801 was first introduced in September, 2008, in response to the implementation of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) open access mandate, effective as of April 2008, which requires NIH grantees to make their resulting research publicly available within a year. Publishers have bitterly opposed the NIH mandate on both procedural grounds, and on principle.
Procedurally, publishers claim passing the mandate in an omnibus funding bill was wrong, and Conyers, HR 801’s sponsor, has complained that the NIH mandate slighted his Judiciary committee’s jurisdiction, calling it “a change slipped through the appropriations process in the dark of night.” On principle, publishers claim the NIH mandate takes unfair advantage of publishers’ efforts, such as editing and peer-review, and diminishes copyright.
OA on the offensive?
First introduced in 2006, FRPAA represents an even broader, more aggressive mandate to offer public access to taxpayer-funded research across all agencies. Although the initial bill went nowhere legislatively, supporters say it generated critical support for OA policies, including the NIH’s.
The FRPAA would apply to all unclassified research funded by agencies including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Transportation, Environmental Protection, as well as the National Science Foundation and NASA.
Reintroducing FRPAA in 2009 would seem to be a smart political play for OA advocates—going from defense, with HR 801, to offense with the NIH mandate, and FRPAA. OA advocates, however, stress that the bill’s reintroduction is not a strategy—the FRPAA, they say, can pass.
This is partly because the NIH mandate has been successful so far, said Open access proponent Peter Suber. Second, he notes, when FRPAA first went to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in 2006, Lieberman was the committee’s ranking member—he now chairs the committee.
Last but not least, the bill’s aim syncs with President Obama’s pledge to open up government. “Cornyn and Lieberman are not interested in being a symbolic foil to Conyers,” Suber noted. “They want public access to publicly-funded research, and they think this is the time to try again.”
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6668699.html
"It looks like there’s a new copyright battle brewing in Congress after U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Joe Lieberman, (I-CT) reintroduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), a bill that would require every federal department and agency with an annual extramural research budget of $100 million or more to make their research available to the public within six months of publication.
The bill sets up a direct showdown—or perhaps a stalemate—with Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), who in February of this year, introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (HR 801) an opposing bill supported by publishers that would prohibit the federal government from requiring copyright transfer in connection with receiving federal funding.
Reintroduction
This is the second time around for both bills. The publisher-supported HR 801 was first introduced in September, 2008, in response to the implementation of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) open access mandate, effective as of April 2008, which requires NIH grantees to make their resulting research publicly available within a year. Publishers have bitterly opposed the NIH mandate on both procedural grounds, and on principle.
Procedurally, publishers claim passing the mandate in an omnibus funding bill was wrong, and Conyers, HR 801’s sponsor, has complained that the NIH mandate slighted his Judiciary committee’s jurisdiction, calling it “a change slipped through the appropriations process in the dark of night.” On principle, publishers claim the NIH mandate takes unfair advantage of publishers’ efforts, such as editing and peer-review, and diminishes copyright.
OA on the offensive?
First introduced in 2006, FRPAA represents an even broader, more aggressive mandate to offer public access to taxpayer-funded research across all agencies. Although the initial bill went nowhere legislatively, supporters say it generated critical support for OA policies, including the NIH’s.
The FRPAA would apply to all unclassified research funded by agencies including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Transportation, Environmental Protection, as well as the National Science Foundation and NASA.
Reintroducing FRPAA in 2009 would seem to be a smart political play for OA advocates—going from defense, with HR 801, to offense with the NIH mandate, and FRPAA. OA advocates, however, stress that the bill’s reintroduction is not a strategy—the FRPAA, they say, can pass.
This is partly because the NIH mandate has been successful so far, said Open access proponent Peter Suber. Second, he notes, when FRPAA first went to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in 2006, Lieberman was the committee’s ranking member—he now chairs the committee.
Last but not least, the bill’s aim syncs with President Obama’s pledge to open up government. “Cornyn and Lieberman are not interested in being a symbolic foil to Conyers,” Suber noted. “They want public access to publicly-funded research, and they think this is the time to try again.”
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6668699.html
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