Call to Action: Support the Bipartisan Federal Public Access Act
Andrea Higginbotham
We have just posted an important, new call to action asking you to support the Federal Research Public Access Act (http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/issues/frpaa/frpaa_action/FRPAA2012.shtml). This is a bipartisan bill introduced last week in the U.S. Senate (S. 2096) and House of Representatives (H.R. 4004) that would make all US government funded research freely available within 6 months of publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Our call to action includes action items, background, talking points, and resources, and links to our legislative action center where people can write their representatives directly.
We currently have a unique opportunity to create change. The Research Works Act (H.R. 3699), a piece of legislation introduced in December that would ban the government from providing the public access to publicly funded research, has galvanized the research community into acting against practices that restrict access to research articles – reaching the pages of the Economist, the New York Times, Wired, the Guardian, the Boston Globe, Slate, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The publishers of the two most prestigious scientific journals, Science and Nature, have not only opposed the Research Works Act publicly but also endorsed the National Institutes of Health public access policy, which FRPAA would extend to the other federal science agencies.
With reinvigorated support from the research community and attention from the mainstream media, now is the time to push for this groundbreaking legislation and let the US Congress know that the public deserves access to the research which they paid for.
Your help in distributing our call to action to your members and relevant email lists is much appreciated.
Best,
Andrea
Andrea Brusca Higginbotham
Communications Manager, SPARC
21 Dupont Circle, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 296-2296 ext 121