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<font size=3>[Forwarding from the Greater Western Library Alliance
(GWLA). --Peter Suber.]<br><br>
<br>
For immediate release<br>
October 1, 2009<br><br>
For more information, contact:<br>
Joni Blake<br>
816-926-8765<br>
<a href="mailto:joni@gwla.org">joni@gwla.org</a><br><br>
18 Chief Academic and Research Officers Support Public Access Legislation
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
The letter reads, in part:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">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. <br><br>
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.Â
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.
</blockquote><br>
The full text of the letter is available at
<a href="http://www.gwla.org/">http://www.gwla.org</a>. <br><br>
[PS: The deep link is
<<a href="http://bit.ly/1q2JUX" eudora="autourl">
http://bit.ly/1q2JUX</a>>. ]<br><br>
"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."<br><br>
"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 <i>use</i> 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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
For more information, visit
<a href="http://www.gwla.org/">http://www.gwla.org</a>. <br><br>
---------- <br><br>
<i>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</i>
<i>(<a href="http://www.bioone.org%29/">http://www.bioone.org)</a>, a
non-profit, electronic publishing enterprise in the biological and
environmental sciences. For more information on GWLA, go to
<a href="http://www.gwla.org/">http://www.gwla.org</a>.<br>
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