Peter Suber’s excellent roundup of commentary on the “kill NIH-OA” bill
This month’s SPARC Open Access Newsletter contains an excellent overview of both past and current commentary regarding the reintroduction of Conyers’ Orwellian-ly named, “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.” Suber sums up both the reasons to be optimistic and reasons to be concerned. Much has changed since the last go-round. I urge anyone interested in continuing public access to publicly funded research in the US to read the Newsletter this month. Much is at stake, beyond the NIH mandate itself. Not that OA in general will suffer or be set back, but the US role in furthering public access will be set back, as well as the public access itself to publicly funded US research. Our best should be out there along with the rest of the world’s. It won’t be if our seemingly quite short-sighted US publishers have their way.
