There is a bill being voted upon by the U.S. Senate on October 15th which will potentially open up a great deal of research being done with National Institute of Health (NIH) funding. The bill will mandate that the public (as well as other researchers) have access to research funded through grants by the NIH. Similar language has already passed a House vote in a budget bill, and so if this is approved in the Senate it is likely to become law.
The ALA has an easy to use site to allow people to send e-mails to their senators (just enter your zip code), and Digital Scholarship has some well-phrased suggestions for the text. I did my own summary, after reading through the above pages. Use if you like, but think about how you could state it in your own words, as well:
Dear Senator xxxxx:
As a library staff member, a blogger, and a U.S. citizen, I feel strongly that government sponsored research should be as open and available for everyone’s benefit as possible. This will lead to greater understanding of health issues, and will assist in focusing research more effectively in the future, which will save time, money, and lives. Open Access is the most effective way to do this with the NIH research.
For further information, the resources and talking points at http://www.digital-scholarship.org/other/nihtext.htm contain a great deal of merit. Also, Peter Suber’s website has excellent information: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
Thank you for your consideration on this important topic.
Sincerely,
Rick Mason
xxx-xxx-xxxx
Library Support Staff blog
http://blog.librarysupportstaff.org/
Senator Sherrod Brown (Ohio) replied via e-mail, and I thought it made sense to add it here:
Dear Mr. Mason:
Thank you for expressing your views regarding the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) public access policy.
I agree with your view that making the results of NIH research more widely available to the public makes sense. By allowing scientists and doctors – not to mention American tax-payers – the chance to access the most current scientific findings will improve the nation’s research climate and possibly lead to more medical breakthroughs.
That is why I am supportive of efforts by the Senate Appropriations Committee to include a provision (Section 221) in the Fiscal Year 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill (S. 1710) that would require NIH-funded researchers to submit their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/), a free, digital database open to the public. S. 1710 is currently awaiting floor action.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Sherrod Brown