A congressional hearing on public access

Identical versions of the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) have been introduced in the House and the Senate. I shared a few concerns about FRPAA in a post last December. Here's what I had to say:

I am, however, concerned by the provision of the bill requiring free online public access within 6 months of publication. As Judy Jernstedt, editor of the American Journal of Botany, and I wrote to Senators Lieberman and Cornyn in September, if federally funded research is available free of charge from an easily accessible and permanent repository after only 6 months, personal and institutional subscriptions to journals publishing that research are likely to decline, and they may decline substantially. If they do, not-for-publishers, like the Botanical Society of America, will no longer be able to publish their journals and the results will be less public access to science, not more.

Like many not-for-profit publishers, the Botanical Society of America has already adopted policies that enhance public access to science. You can read the letter Judy and I sent on p. 146 of the December 2009 issue of the Plant Science Bulletin (please ignore the typo "imbedded" for "impeded").

I still have the same concerns. The House will be holding a public hearing on the act next Thursday (source). I suspect Judy Jernstedt and I may be sending a version of the letter we sent to Senators Lieberman and Cornyn to Rep. Mike Doyle, who introduced the bill in the House, and to Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay, Chairman, and Rep. Patrick McHenry, Ranking Member, of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, which is holding the hearing.

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