14 February 2008

NIH-funded research must be made available to the public via PubMed Central

Open access to publicly funded research allows researchers to build upon the work of others to further advance knowledge for the public good. While much of the research is done at academic institutions, the same institutions pay to receive the results of the research in journals whose subscription prices have skyrocketed several times the rate of inflation.

The federal government spends over fifty five billion dollars annually to fund research in a variety of fields (ACRL Legislative Agenda). "Research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health alone results in over 60,000 peer-reviewed articles per year." On December 26, 2007, President Bush signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R. 2764). This mandates that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provide online public access to findings from its funded research. Effective April , 2008, researchers will be required to deposit electronic copies of their manuscripts into PubMed Central.

Researchers who must comply with these requirements can find out more:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/

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