[Forwarded message from <span class="gmail_sendername">Stacie Lemick</span><span dir="ltr">]</span><br><div class="gmail_quote"><br><br><div style="word-wrap:break-word">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE<span> </span>Contact:<span> </span><span> </span>Ranit
Schmelzer</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.0in;text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman'">February
22, 2013<span> </span><span> </span><a href="tel:202-538-1065" value="+12025381065" target="_blank">202-538-1065</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""><span> </span></span><a href="mailto:sparcmedia@arl.org" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">sparcmedia@arl.org</span></a><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">SPARC APPLAUDS WHITE HOUSE
FOR LANDMARK DIRECTIVE</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">OPENING UP ACCESS TO
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH</span></b><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">Ensures
that Taxpayer-Funded Research Available to Public</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">Washington, D.C.
– </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">The
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) today applauded
President Obama for issuing a landmark Directive to ensure that the results of taxpayer-funded
research – both articles and data – are made available to the general public to
freely access and fully use.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">The action today comes about after </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">a
ten-year campaign by the “Open Access” movement – scientists, </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">universities, libraries, technology
leaders, patient advocates, entrepreneurs, students, and every-day Americans –
aimed at making taxpayer-funded scientific research freely accessible and fully
reusable in a digital environment.</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">“</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">This is a
watershed moment.<span> </span>The Administration’s
action marks a major step forward towards open access to scientific research,”
said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC, </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">which
works to broaden public access to scholarly research</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">.<span>
</span>“The Directive will </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">accelerate scientific discovery,
improve education, </span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">and
empower entrepreneurs to translate research into commercial ventures and jobs.<span> </span>It’s good for our nation, our economy, and
our future.”<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">“Knowledge is
power.<span> </span>It’s the power to innovate, to
advance scientific discovery, to promote economic growth, and to create jobs. <span> </span>In 2013, we should be taking full advantage of
the digital environment to disseminate the results of publicly funded research,
not keep this knowledge locked away.”</span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">Every year, the
federal government uses taxpayer dollars to fund tens of billions of dollars of
scientific research that results in thousands upon thousands of articles
published in scientific journals.<span> </span>The
government funds this research with the understanding that it will advance
science, spur the economy, accelerate innovation, and improve the lives of our
citizens.<span> </span>Yet most taxpayers – including
academics, students, and patients – are shut out of accessing and using the
results of the research that their tax dollars fund, because it is only available
through expensive and often hard-to-access scientific journals.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">The potential economic benefits of opening up access to this
research are estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.<span> </span></span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">In
instances where this kind of open access has already been enabled, remarkable
examples demonstrate how powerful open access can be.<span> </span></span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">Placing the Human Genome Project in
the public domain, for example, enabled scientists everywhere to access the
data.<span> </span>The $3.8 billion investment in the
project has had an estimated economic impact of almost $800 billion. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">Details
of the White House Directive</span></b><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">The <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-access-results-federally-funded-research" target="_blank">White
House Directive</a> affirms the principle that the public has a right to access
the results of taxpayer-funded research and calls on all federal agencies with
annual research and development budgets of $100 million or more to provide free
and timely online access to the results of that research.<span> </span>Articles reporting on the results of publicly
funded scientific research must be made available after a 12 month embargo
period.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Directive builds on the progress made by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), the first federal agency to require public access
to taxpayer-funded research. <span> </span>Since its
implementation, the NIH policy enabled more than 90,000 new biomedical
manuscripts to be made publicly available each year, resulting in millions of
Americans having access to vital health care information.<span> </span>Demand for this information is extremely
high, with more than 700,000 unique users accessing material from this
repository each weekday.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">The Directive
comes as the bipartisan </span><a href="http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/blog/with-introduction-of-fastr-congress-picks-up-the-p.shtml" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">Fair Access to Science and Technology Research
Act</span></a><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman""> (FASTR), is making
is way through the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">“The Directive
is a major achievement for both open access and open government.<span> </span>We should now take the next step and make
open access the law of the land.<span> </span>We
commend Senators Cornyn and Wyden and Representatives Doyle, Lofgren, and Yoder
for introducing FASTR and call on Congress to pass it without delay,” said
Joseph.<span> </span></span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">To follow the conversation
on Twitter use the hashtags #openaccess or #OA.<span>
</span>Media questions can be directed to @SPARC_NA or </span><a href="mailto:sparcmedia@arl.org" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">sparcmedia@arl.org</span></a><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">###</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">About SPARC<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">SPARC®, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries
working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.<span> </span>Developed by the Association of Research
Libraries, SPARC has become a catalyst for change.<span> </span>Its pragmatic focus is to stimulate the
emergence of new scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination
of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries.<span> </span>More information can be found at </span><a href="http://www.arl.org/sparc/index.shtml" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">www.arl.org/sparc</span></a><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman"">.</span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman'"> </span></p>
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<div>____________________________________</div><div>Stacie Lemick</div><div>Programs and Operations Associate</div><div>SPARC</div><div>(The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition)</div><div><a href="mailto:stacie@arl.org" target="_blank">stacie@arl.org</a></div>
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