[BOAI] 18 Chief Academic and Research Officers Support Public Access Legislation

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA).  --Peter Suber.]


For immediate release
October 1, 2009

For more information, contact:
Joni Blake
816-926-8765
<mailto:joni at gwla.org>joni at gwla.org

18 Chief Academic and Research Officers Support Public Access Legislation

Kansas City, MO.  The Chief Academic and Research 
Officers of 18 research universities in the U.S., 
representing public and private institutions 
across 10 states, have declared their support for 
the Federal Research Public Access Act (S. 1373) 
in a letter issued today by the Greater Western 
Library Alliance. The letter is the first issued 
by chief academic and research officers in 
partnership, jointly recognizing the value of 
greater accessibility and utility afforded by 
legislation for public access to federally funded research.

The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), 
introduced in June by Senators Lieberman (I-CT) 
and Cornyn (R-TX), is a bi-partisan measure to 
ensure online public access to the published 
results of research funded through eleven U.S. 
agencies. The bill would require that journal 
articles stemming from publicly funded research 
be made available in an online repository no 
later than six months after publication.

The letter reads, in part:

>Timely, barrier-free access to the results of 
>federally funded research supports the core 
>mission of our academic institutions and is 
>essential to fully utilize our collective 
>investment in science. FRPAA will help us 
>maximize this investment by increasing the 
>sharing research results, advancing the pace of 
>discovery, and applying this knowledge for the benefit of our communities.
>
>The FRPAA bill also expands on the success of 
>the public access policy of the National 
>Institutes of Health (NIH), the first U.S. 
>agency to require public access to 
>taxpayer-funded research.  More than 450,000 
>unique users access material from the NIH 
>repository each day.  Under S.1373, we envision 
>researchers and students working in fields of 
>equal importance – from climate change to 
>renewable energy – having the same access to 
>federally funded research to advance their critical work.

The full text of the letter is available at 
<http://www.gwla.org/>http://www.gwla.org.

[PS:  The deep link is <http://bit.ly/1q2JUX>. ]

"This legislation will deliver tremendous value 
to our institutions individually as well as to 
the academy as a whole," said David W. Pershing, 
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the 
University of Utah. "Ensuring access to the 
latest research funded by the U.S. government 
will help ensure that U.S. higher-educational 
institutions remain competitive on the world stage."

"Unlocking the results of federally funded 
research in this way – by requiring open and 
online access – will enable researchers not only 
to reach the material, but use it in new and 
innovative ways," added Gary K. Ostrander, Vice 
Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, 
University of Hawaii at Manoa. "This bill will 
make it possible to truly conduct science in the 
digital age and advance discovery in the 21st century."

The institutions represented are members of the 
Greater Western Library Alliance, a coalition of 
research libraries that collaborates on matters 
related to scholarly communication, electronic 
resources, cooperative collection development, 
digital libraries, and more. The Alliance 
coordinated the release of the letter.

For more information, visit <http://www.gwla.org/>http://www.gwla.org.

----------

The Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) 
represents 32 research libraries in 17 states in 
the Midwest and Western United States.  Its 
program initiatives include an array of resource 
sharing, scholarly communication and continuing 
education projects.  GWLA is a co-founder of 
BioOne 
(<http://www.bioone.org%29/>http://www.bioone.org), 
a non-profit, electronic publishing enterprise in 
the biological and environmental sciences. For 
more information on GWLA, go to <http://www.gwla.org/>http://www.gwla.org.
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