Berkeley Prof. Demands Open Access to the People
Nathan Szajnberg, MD, Managing Editor
Professor Michael Eisen, at Berkeley, insists that research paid for by the U.S. taxpayer belongs to the public. Yet, he writes that profit-making journals are trying to make the public pay twice to read the results of their funded research:
“Since 2009, the results of that research have been available free of charge on the National Library of Medicine’s Web site, allowing the public (patients and physicians, students and teachers) to read about the discoveries their tax dollars paid for.
But a bill introduced in the House of Representatives last month threatens to cripple this site. The Research Works Act would forbid the N.I.H. to require, as it now does, that its grantees provide copies of the papers they publish in peer-reviewed journals to the library. If the bill passes, to read the results of federally funded research, most Americans would have to buy access to individual articles at a cost of $15 or $30 apiece. In other words, taxpayers who already paid for the research would have to pay again to read the results.”
Journals depend on freely-donated time from us, from professionals, for peer-review. Yet, they charge handsomely not only for their journal, but also for those who want to order an individual article. What’s this to psychoanalysts? We often do our work privately, write on our own time, send publications to peer-reviewed journals and are not paid for the articles. Most analysts don’t have public grants; but most write gratis, donate their time. We also donate our time to peer-review articles. Shouldn’t we insist that our work be available to the public?
Eisen makes two suggestions: first, that the Congress should not pass laws prohibiting free distribution of publicly-funded research; second, that scientists begin to publish in open-access online journals, which can also be peer-reviewed.
Click Here to Read: Eisen’s article in full.