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A battle over a proposal to make taxpayer-funded medical research reports available to the public is brewing on Capitol Hill, pitting some publishers and members of the scientific and medical communities against each other.

"The issue here is research that has been created with taxpayer money," said Rick Johnson, director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. The coalition is part of the Open Access Working Group that has promoted the notion of open access to research.

At issue is language in the House Appropriations Committee report on the bill to fund the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education departments in fiscal 2005. The report calls for authors funded by the National Institutes of Health to deposit their research into a central, digital repository that would be freely available to the public.

Roughly 60,000 NIH-funded reports are written each year, and more than 25,000 journals publish research articles from various sources. Libraries likely would not cancel current journal subscriptions as a result of the repository, he said, because they also need the other research.

NIH, which has a $28 billion budget, is not asking for additional appropriations, Johnson said, but is seeking a more efficient way to get its research to people who can benefit from it and who pay for it. He added that the repository is a just step toward greater efficiency.

"It does not mean free lunch," Johnson said. "It means finding other ways to pay the cost of publishing."

But some publishers say the move would create a government-mandated repository without evidentiary hearings. "It is extremely unfair," said Barbara Meredith, vice president of professional and scholarly publishing for the Association of American Publishers (AAP). She said the move "would signal the demise" of scientific publishers.

NIH's proposed system would run parallel to what publishers already make available on the Internet. Under the proposal, authors would write manuscripts that would be uploaded to PubMedCentral after a six-month embargo to protect publishers.

"This is simply an alternative." Johnson said. But it could be a cost-saving alternative for libraries that saw journal prices skyrocket some 227 percent between 1986 and 2002.

NIH held a series of three meetings with stakeholders in the research community in late August, but the AAP said the meetings were "hastily called." The group has its sights on the Senate.

AAP President Patricia Schroeder argued in a letter to Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NIH funding, that opponents of the idea have been "steamrolled" by a process that has lacked hearings and evidentiary record.

"A government-operated repository raises the specter of government censorship and encroachment upon scholarly discourse," she wrote.

The "intent of the committee" is "to take a serious look at this idea, not that we must do it right now," said a spokesman at the House subcommittee that oversees NIH. The institute is scheduled to submit a report to the committee by Dec. 1 on how it would implement the policy.

COMMENTS

• It seems a bit disingenuous that researchers or those that purport to represent the research community would raise the specter of censorship. It is a matter of the public having access to what it pays for! The public has already paid for it once, why should it have to pay for it again. Using the highly charged "B" word (B = Bureaucrats) is saying the Academic community and Publishers don't have an equivalent, they do. Public funded research should be made available to the public at no cost. Note: Unless its security is vital to our national interest. Free the Information! James N. Phillips Jr. Posted September 13, 2004 12:53 PM
• This is an important and interesting question. In my view scientific and technological advancement is the engine that drives our economy. The government should do all it can to promote the free exchange of knowledge and information in this area. We also need to determine how to best deliver the benefits of science to the American people. Should Govt's subsidize or grant tax breaks to scientific publishers, conditioned upon keeping the cost of publications low? I don't want to see any scientist denied the information he or she needs to make a discovery because they can't affort some subscription. Can publishers do this distribution and dissemination task better than government bureacrats? Should the University and Academic community be the vehicle for distribution of this data at low or no cost in order to get it to reseachers, and keep big industry from locking it up for profit motives. How do we keep hostile nationals and nations, terrorists and others from gaining access to this data to potentially harm the US with it. The low cost of publishing using electronic media ought to keep these prices low. There are few methods of distribution that are so effective and low cost as use of digital media. Some method of avoiding the publication of "group think", croneyism, undue deference to the established scientific community must also be considered. Truly innovative breakthroughts are seldom the product of convention thinking about a subject, as much of the history of science demonstrates. Many publishers will only print research work by "established scientists" or "known reseachers" . We need room for the new blood and fresh ideas of newerless established, or conventional, scientists as well. There are many areas where it could be argued the Gov't/public should be provided a set or copy of the information or data for the public domaine, and the benefit of the public. What about a national center/libary for GIS "data sets" so these don't need to be re-created or purchased, at great expense, each time they are needed. Kevin Myles Posted September 13, 2004 11:45 AM
• My first comment was not complete. Ms. Schroeder protests at the loss of her "free lunch" by invoking the provocative "C" word, censorship. ("A government-operated repository raises the specter of government censorship and encroachment upon scholarly discourse," she wrote.) In fact, what she is advocating is the continued censorship of this material (unless we pay her member publishers) from the people who paid for the research to be done and reported. David Donnell Posted September 7, 2004 9:46 AM