US elections delay open access articles bill

The mid-term elections in the US are likely to delay the introduction of the Federal Research Public Access Act, with the bill having to be re-introduced to the US Senate in 2007. Despite the delay, the volume of support for the bill grows ever louder.

November’s elections for both the House of Representatives and Senate were won convincingly by the Democratic Party over the incumbent Republican Party. The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) is a cross-party bill, backed by Joseph Lieberman of the Democratic Party and John Cornyn of the Republicans . If passed, the act will demand that federal agencies with $100m of annual funding make their research articles – which have been published in peer-reviewed journals – available free online within six months.

“It is likely the bill will have to be re-introduced,” said Heather Joseph, executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition (SPARC).

FRPAA has been attracting increasing interest since it was first tabled earlier this year. “Scholars and the public are on the right side of this matter. FRPAA should become law,” said David Shulenburger, vice president for Academic Affairs at the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC). He backed up his call: “We now have significant experience with journals that have voluntarily permitted articles they published to be made available for free after delay periods… evidence is not consistent with an apocalyptic collapse of the subscriber base.” Shulenburger added that those journals which have volunteered to make content freely available have not seen a collapse of their subscriber base.

Duane Webster, executive director of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), said: “The research library community vigorously advocates passage of FRPAA. This legislation is an essential step towards broadening access to widely needed information resources.”

Joseph commented on how the process will progress: “As long as the co-sponsors of the bill still want to back it, then it is just a case of re-filing it.”

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