Presidents of 57 liberal arts colleges in the U.S., representing 22 states, have declared their support for the Federal Research Public Access Act (S. 1373) in an Open Letter released today. The letter is the first from higher education administrators to be issued in support of the 2009 bill, and further reinforcement that support for the Act exists at the highest levels of the higher education community. The presidents' letter notes, "Adoption of the Federal Research Public Access Act will democratize access to research information funded by tax dollars. It will benefit of education, research, and the general public."
The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), introduced in June by Senators Lieberman (I-CT) and Cornyn (R-TX), is a bi-partisan measure to ensure online public access to the published results of research funded through eleven U.S. agencies. The bill would require that journal articles stemming from publicly funded research be made available in an online repository no later than six months after publication.
The letter, available at http://www.oberlingroup.org/open-letter-federal-research-public-access-act, was organized through the library directors of the Oberlin Group, a consortium of 80 liberal arts college libraries nationwide.
Ed. Note: It contains the list of signers.
The Federal Research Public Access Act proposes to build upon the success of the first U.S. requirement for public access to publicly funded research (through the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy) and is supported by: 90 research, advocacy, publishing, and student organizations that represent the Alliance for Taxpayer Access; the Academic Council of the University of California System; NetCoalition.com (representing Amazon.com, Ask.com, Bloomberg, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, and Wikipedia, as well as state and local ISPs); the Rockefeller University Press; OXFAM; and major national and regional research organizations. For details, visit http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa.
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