The legislation, which would demand that most recipients of federal grants make their findings available free on the Web within six months after they are published in a peer-reviewed journal, represents a rebuke to scientific publishers, who have asserted that free access to their contents would undercut their paid subscription base.

This is an excellent mandate. When I was in academia I wrote research papers and provided peer reviews without any compensation. I also sat on editorial program committees without any compensation. My field of expertise is computer science but this system of reliance on “volunteers” is probably common in other fields. Monetary compensation is provided indirectly by obtaining “prestige” within a research area which leads to increased salary and promotions. Hence, the following quote in the article is almost laughable:

But Patricia S. Schroeder, president and chief executive of the Association of American Publishers, promised a fight. “It is frustrating that we can’t seem to get across to people how expensive it is to do the peer review, edit these articles and put them into a form everyone can understand,” Schroeder said.

GARSON: I hope you write more on these issues, which I’ve covered in such posts as this one. I’d love to see more. I can give you access to the main part of the blog to get your message across better.

BRANKO: Oh, how I agree with you! Libraries should be giving away high-quality public domain books, which they themselves obtained for free, thanks to the efforts of DP and the like.

Thanks,
David

How many libraries do you know that offer their patrons public domain e-books that the libraries themselves downloaded off the internet? IIRC you have been publishing countless stories here about how libraries much prefer to buy their free books from companies like Overdrive. It’s silly, and solely based in fears, but there you have it.

There were and are massive taxpayer-funded subsidies given to universities and to faculty members performing the type of research that appears in these journals. Why is this material locked up from the general public? What possible justification can be given for this deliberate impoverishment of the public discourse? A healthy vibrant society depends on high-quality public communication, and yet some of the highest quality information is hidden from view and unindexed by the major search engines.

Only an “elite” club of participant institutions can access the archive. Incongruously, these non-profit institutions often claim to be dedicated to the ideals of education and enlightenment. However, they are enforcing selective data access privileges, and hence they are exacerbating societal inequities.