In recent years, sci­en­tific pub­lish­ing has changed pro­foundly as the Inter­net sim­pli­fied access to the sci­en­tific jour­nals that once required a trip to a uni­ver­sity library. That ease of access has caused many to ques­tion why com­mer­cial pub­lish­ers are able to dic­tate the terms by which pub­licly funded research is made avail­able to the pub­lic that paid for it. Open access pro­po­nents won a big vic­tory when Con­gress voted to com­pel the National Insti­tutes of Health to set a pol­icy of host­ing copies of the text of all pub­li­ca­tions pro­duced by research it funds, a pol­icy that has taken effect this year. Now, it appears that the pub­lish­ing indus­try may be try­ing to get Con­gress to intro­duce leg­is­la­tion that will reverse its ear­lier deci­sion under the guise of strength­en­ing copy­right pro­tec­tions.
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17th September, 2008 Comments Off