You paid for this research, now you get to read it

The public will soon start getting quicker access to research results it sponsors. From BioMed Central Blog : NIH Public Access Policy to become mandatory:

NIH Public Access Policy to become mandatory

Many open access advocates will already have heard that NIH's Public Access Policy, until now voluntary, is set to become mandatory following President Bush's approval on Dec 26th 2007 of the latest NIH appropriations bill, which includes the following wording:

"The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law."

This is great news both for researchers and for the general public. Peter Suber's January SPARC Open Access Newsletter contains a detailed analysis of what the change means, and identifies some of the key issues that remain to be resolved.

More at BioMed Central Blog : NIH Public Access Policy to become mandatory