A powerful piece of advocacy! I'll be snipping out bits of this for my
information shots. 

Thanks,

Douglas.

Douglas Houston
Repository Project Manager
Library Services
L343 LRC
University of Glamorgan CF37 1DL
 
tel.: 01443 654543
mobile: 07760 321100
-----Original Message-----
From: Repositories discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 13 July 2007 18:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Open Letter to the U.S. Congress from 26 Nobel Laureates (fwd)

Go ye and do likewise. -- SH

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:28:59 -0400
From: Peter Suber peters--earlham.edu
To: SPARC Open Access Forum SPARC-OAForum--arl.org
Subject: [SOAF] Open Letter to the U.S. Congress from 26 Nobel Laureates

An Open Letter to the U.S. Congress
Signed by 26 Nobel Prize Winners

July 8, 2007

Dear Members of Congress:

As scientists and Nobel laureates, we are writing 
to express our strong support for the House and 
Senate Appropriations Committees' recent 
directives to the NIH to enact a mandatory policy 
that allows public access to published reports of 
work supported by the agency.  We believe that 
the time is now for Congress to enact this 
enlightened policy to ensure that the results of 
research conducted by NIH can be more readily 
accessed, shared and built upon - to maximize the 
return on our collective investment in science and to further the public
good.

As we noted in a letter to Congress urging action 
on this policy nearly three years ago, we object 
to barriers that hinder, delay or block the 
spread of scientific knowledge supported by 
federal tax dollars - including our own 
works.  Thanks to the internet, we can transform 
the speed and ease with which the results of 
research can be shared and built upon.  However, 
to our great frustration, the results of 
NIH-supported medical research continue to be 
largely inaccessible to taxpayers who have already paid for it.

Despite best intentions, the voluntary policy 
enacted by NIH over two years ago has simply not 
improved public access significantly. As active 
scientists, it does not surprise us that a 
request - with neither incentives nor 
consequences attached - to submit our articles so 
that they are freely available simply does not 
make the lengthy "to-do" lists of our colleagues. 
We firmly agree with NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, 
who indicated in his testimony to the Senate LHHS 
Appropriations Subcommittee this year that only a 
mandatory policy will be an effective 
policy.   Requiring compliance is not a punitive 
measure, but rather a simple step to ensure that 
everyone, including scientists themselves, will 
reap the benefits that public access can 
provide.   We have seen this amply demonstrated 
in other innovative efforts within the NIH - most 
notably with the database that contains the 
outcome of the Human Genome Project.

The public at large also has a significant stake 
in seeing that this research is made more widely 
available. When a woman goes online to find what 
treatment options are available to battle breast 
cancer, she will find many opinions, but 
peer-reviewed research of the highest quality 
often remains behind a high-fee barrier. Families 
seeking clinical trial updates for a loved one 
with Huntington's disease search in vain because 
they do not have a journal 
subscription.  Librarians, physicians, health 
care workers, students, journalists, and 
investigators at thousands of academic 
institutions and companies are currently hindered 
by unnecessary costs and delays in gaining access 
to publicly funded research results.

Over the past three years, public access to work 
produced in other countries has been greatly 
expanded.   Both government and philanthropic 
funding agencies in several nations, including 
the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Brazil, 
France, and Australia have outpaced the U.S. in 
advancing policies for sharing the results of 
their funded research, with rules that are more 
stringent than those now employed by the NIH. In 
the United Kingdom alone, 5 of the 8 Research 
Councils and the leading foundations that support 
science have enacted mandatory public access 
policies; it is now estimated that 90% of the 
biomedical research funded in the U.K. is covered 
by a mandatory enhanced- or open-access policy. 
Enhanced public access, will not, of course, mean 
the end of medical and scientific journals at 
all. They will continue to exercise peer-review 
over submitted papers as the basis for deciding 
which papers to accept for publication, just as 
they do now. The experience of dozens of 
publishers has shown that even with embargo 
periods of 6 months (or shorter), journals 
continue to thrive. In addition, since this 
policy will apply only to NIH-funded research; 
journals will contain significant numbers of 
articles not covered by this requirement as well 
as other articles and commentary invaluable to 
the science community. Journals will continue to 
be the hallmark of achievement in scientific 
research, and we will depend on them.

The NIH, with Congress' direction, has the means 
today to promote enhanced access to 
taxpayer-funded research through the National 
Library of Medicine. NIH grantees should be 
required to provide to the NLM an electronic copy 
of the final version of all manuscripts accepted 
for publication by legitimate medical and 
scientific journals, after peer review. As soon 
as possible after the time of publication, NIH 
should make these reports freely available to all 
through their digital archive, PubMed Central (PMC).

We strongly encourage you to realize this overdue 
reform by adopting language in the FY08 
Appropriations measure that requires the NIH 
Public Access Policy to be made mandatory.

Signed by 26 Nobel Laureates:

Peter Agre, Chemistry, 2003
Sidney Altman, Chemistry, 1989
Paul Berg, Chemistry, 1980
Michael Bishop, Physiology or Medicine, 1989
Baruch Blumberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1976
Gunter Blobel, Physiology or Medicine, 1999
Paul Boyer, Chemistry, 1997
Sydney Brenner, Physiology or Medicine, 2002
Johann Deisenhofer, Chemistry, 1988
Edmond Fischer, Physiology or Medicine, 1992
Paul Greengard, Physiology or Medicine, 2000
Leland Hartwell, Physiology or Medicine, 2001
Robert Horvitz, Physiology or Medicine, 2002
Eric Kandel, Physiology or Medicine, 2000
Arthur Kornberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1959
Harold Kroto, Chemistry, 1996
Roderick MacKinnon, Chemistry, 2003
Kary Mullis, Chemistry, 1993
Ferid Murad, Physiology or Medicine, 1998
Joseph Murray, Physiology or Medicine, 1990
Marshall Nirenberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1968
Stanley Prusiner, Physiology or Medicine, 1997
Richard Roberts, Physiology or Medicine, 1993
Hamilton Smith, Physiology or Medicine, 1978
Harold Varmus, Physiology or Medicine, 1989
James Watson, Physiology or Medicine, 1962