<font size="2"><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif">[Forwarding from STM. --Peter Suber.]<br></font></font><br><div class="gmail_quote"><br>PRESS RELEASE FROM STM<br>
19 May 2011<br>
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STM Publishers welcome Spanish Science Law<br>
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The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) today welcomed the balanced legislation in the new Spanish Science Law.<br>
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'STM applauds the efforts of Spanish government to improve Spanish science with this new law, and in particular the respect for intellectual property rights articulated in Article 37,' said Michael Mabe, CEO of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers.<br>
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The Plenary of the House of Representatives adopted the Law on Science, Technology and Innovation by 289 votes in favor, 3 against and no abstentions. The bill updates the 1986 law, Spain's first scientific legislation after becoming a democracy.<br>
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Article 37 of the wide-ranging bill includes encouragement for the development of open access repositories. It also mandates deposit of research outputs funded by the General Budget of the State in publicly accessible repositories within twelve months of publication. This applies to the authors accepted version of the manuscript, and the bill requires third party agreements such as copyright transfer to be respected.<br>
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'The new law will allow authors to continue to have freedom to publish in journals of their choice and therefore supports the international visibility of Spanish science,' continued Mabe.<br>
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While the bill was being debated, STM asked the Spanish Government, Ministry for Science and Innovation to consider more flexibility in terms of embargo periods for public access. Not every discipline or sub-discipline has the same attitude to material being available before final publication, nor does every discipline have the same pattern of access to scientific articles.<br>
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STM calls on the Spanish government to make funds available to government-funded researchers for open access publication. Publishers are committed to the wide dissemination and unrestricted access to content they publish, on the understanding that services that publishers provide must be paid for in some way. Unfunded mandates for self-archiving have the potential to undermine the sustainability of STM publishing with negative impacts on scholarly communication.<br>
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- ENDS -<br>
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STM is the leading global trade association for academic and professional publishers. It has over 110 members in 21 countries who each year collectively publish nearly 66% of all journal articles and tens of thousands of monographs and reference works. STM members include learned societies, university presses, private companies, new starts and established players. For more information, visit: <a href="http://www.stm-assoc.org" target="_blank">http://www.stm-assoc.org</a>.<br>
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Contact: Kim Beadle, STM, mailto:<a href="mailto:beadle@stm-assoc.org">beadle@stm-assoc.org</a> or phone <a href="tel:%2B44%201865%20339321" value="+441865339321">+44 1865 339321</a><br>
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Following a meeting of its publishing Heads of House and ratification of its outcomes by the STM Board, STM has adopted the following policy statements on access.<br>
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STM on access<br>
- Publishers are committed to wide dissemination and unrestricted access to their content; the services that publishers provide must be paid for in some way.<br>
- STM supports any and all models of access that are sustainable, and that ensure the integrity and permanence of the scholarly record on which progress is built.<br>
- STM does not support unfunded mandates that constrain scholarly authors or affect the sustainability of the publishing enterprise.<br><br></div>