The Scholar’s Space

For everything that’s happened in the last month or so regarding open access to scholarly literature, plus nearly exhaustive background, visit this month’s, “Peter Suber, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, 8/2/07.” This month Peter’s focus is definitely on the NIH funding bill that includes language that would change the NIH policy of requesting that grant recipients post their peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted for publication to PubMed Central to a requirement. Passage is far from assured, but many believe, myself included, that it is only a matter of time. This change is merely one exponent of significant shifts affecting the publishing industry that will undoubtedly continue to affect scholarly communication. The passage of this particular bill (whenever it occurs) will have important implications for the services that we provide our faculty to help them comply with a new requirement.

Peter Suber is a tireless advocate of open access and his thoroughness in reporting on this particular event is a good example of the contribution he makes to the discussion on a regular basis. If you want to know more, read his newsletter or subscribe to the Open Access News feed.