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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Prostate Cancer / March 2008NIH Public Access to journal articles - comments needed by March 17
This message is circulating among various cancer lists. Charles Clausen ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you know, a bill was passed recently that will make it mandatory for articles resulting from NIH funded research to be placed in a repository at the National Library of Medicine and made available free of charge to the public, no later than 12 months after they are published. There are some who think this is unreasonable, and don't want to release these articles since currently they require subscriptions or large per article charges. We advocacy organization leaders have often discussed the hardship the current system places on this - NIH is ready to change it - we need to support the change! NIH very much wants to hear your opinion on this and has opened a site for you to post comments - it is very simple to comment: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/comments.htm Deadline: 5pm EST on Monday, March 17, 2008. 1. What is the NIH Public Access Policy? The Policy implements Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008) which states: SEC. 218. The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law. The Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. It requires scientists to submit journal articles that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central ( http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/). The Policy requires that these articles be accessible to the public on PubMed Central to help advance science and improve human health. Please join your voices together to make sure we have access to the articles we need! Best, Sharon =========================== Sharon F. Terry, MA | President and CEO Genetic Alliance | 4301 Connecticut Avenue, NW | Suite 404 | Washington, DC 20008 | Phone: 202.966.5557 x201 | Fax: 202.966.855 > This message is circulating among various cancer lists. > [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > you to post comments - it is very simple to comment: > http://publicaccess.nih.gov/comments.htm I've just posted a comment explaining why public access is important specifically to me. I recommend that those who've tried to access journals and found stymied by the fact that only abstracts were available should also post comments supporting this initiative. > Deadline: 5pm EST on Monday, March 17, 2008. > [quoted text clipped - 41 lines] > Washington, DC > 20008 | Phone: 202.966.5557 x201 | Fax: 202.966.855 I also just posted a comment in favor of the proposal. I wonder, if this proposal goes through, if some publishers will give higher priority to funding non-government sponsored research. That would be unfortunate. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Alan > I also just posted a comment in favor of the proposal. > > I wonder, if this proposal goes through, if some publishers > will give higher priority to funding non-government > sponsored research. That would be unfortunate. Journals don't generally fund research. They make money by charging ridiculously high prices, mainly to librairies, since few individuals can afford to subscribe to all the journals they need. The added value provided by publishers in in the rerereeing/editing process. The rfereeing is done by unpaid volunteers almos entirely, so it costs them little. Editors are also seldom paid, but copy editors are. The latter do sometimes add some value, but they can also be a pain in the neck, particularly when they don't really understand the subject and make suggestions which radically alter the meaning. As the high energy physicists have discovered, a scientific community can do very well with freely available publication on the web. They bascially invented the internet to facilitate that. (Let's not go into Al Gore's contribution which was to highlight it and foster its growth in Congress. He never claimed he invented it and his description of what he did was not inaccurate.) Journals do play a useful role, but in the age of the internet, we could make do in most fields with many fewer of them which could concentrate on the most important work and make that available in finished form. Unfortunately, in many fields, researchers are used to certain ways of doing things and many of them involve commercial journals. Old ways sometimes die hard, but die they will. > It will be interesting to see how this plays out. > > Alan > ... > Journals don't generally fund research. They make money by charging > ridiculously high prices, mainly to librairies, since few individuals > can afford to subscribe to all the journals they need. Hi Leonard, Do you know if journals make substantial amounts of money selling reprints? If not, I would think the NIH proposal to force publications into the public domain after one year would have very little economic impact on publishers. > ... > Journals do play a useful role, but in the age of the internet, > we could make do in most fields with many fewer of them which > could concentrate on the most important work and make that > available in finished form. I think that's probably right. I've seen some online journals like _Cell_, covering molecular biology, that seem to me to be really excellent (though I'm not an expert in the field and am not the best judge.) > ... Old ways sometimes die hard, but die they will. As one of the prominent hackers said 24 years ago, "information wants to be free". It's getting increasingly difficult for book, journal, news, magazine, movie and music publishers to hang on to their old business models. Some are fighting a rear guard action that will preserve their profits only in the short run. Others are attempting to embrace the future, but often at great cost. It's an exciting time. Fortunately for most of us, including most researchers, we are producers and consumers of information, but not people whose livelihoods are dependent on copyright controls. Alan >> ... >> Journals don't generally fund research. They make money by charging [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > but not people whose livelihoods are dependent on copyright > controls. I can't speak about other fields, but in mathematics I've only rarely heard of author's ordering additional reprints, and I've never heard of anyone buying a reprint from a journal. Photocopiers have been long available and people would usually just photocopy papers from journals. In addition, authors often distributed preprints of their work before publication. These days, of course, people put their papers on the web. Essentially everything published after about 1997 is available that way, so there is little need to order a reprint of a paper. Because my department has a growing population of retired professors and little free room for office space for emeriti, I've had to move my collection of reprints (and everything else) to home. Since I have limited space in my condo, I've taken to scanning that which I want to keep and keeping it on a large external hard drive. But I don't bother for things that are available over the web. There are only a few journals which currently aren't, and that doesn't include the major ones. But those papers are seldom available to the general public. I have to go through NU's Library website, which I can do from home. The Library of course, with a few exceptions pays the journals for online access and sometimes there are restrictions for current issues; users may have to wait up to a year. The NU Medical School Libary is not as easy to use, and it doesn't have some of the journals with prostate cancer articles I might want to look at. But in principle at least I have similar access there and I have used it. > Alan > ... > I can't speak about other fields, but in mathematics I've only rarely > heard of author's ordering additional reprints, and I've never heard of > anyone buying a reprint from a journal. Photocopiers have been long > available and people would usually just photocopy papers from journals. Of course! It's obvious now that I think about it. I remember when photocopiers came into libraries and publishers had fits trying to stifle that then new technology. It is indeed hard to imagine why anyone would order a reprint. If the publishers spend money to try to squelch the NIH plan to make publicly funded research results public, they'll be wasting their money. The information will get around. > ... Since I have > limited space in my condo, I've taken to scanning that which I want to > keep and keeping it on a large external hard drive. But I don't bother > for things that are available over the web. ... I've been following a similar policy. I have, for example, tons of old family photos. By scanning them, I can store them in a tiny space, copy them any number of times, give the complete archive to my children and other family members on a 25 cent DVD, and preserve them from the inevitable degradation to which paper, ink, and dyes are subject. >... I > have to go through NU's Library website, which I can do from home. The > Library of course, with a few exceptions pays the journals for online > access and sometimes there are restrictions for current issues; users > may have to wait up to a year. ... I have similar access to biomedical journals through my work at the National Cancer Institute - which I can also access from home. It is a great convenience as compared to going to far off libraries. > The NU Medical School Library is not as easy to use, and it doesn't have > some of the journals with prostate cancer articles I might want to look > at. But in principle at least I have similar access there and I have > used it. Thanks for the reply. >> ... >> I can't speak about other fields, but in mathematics I've only rarely [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > on a 25 cent DVD, and preserve them from the inevitable > degradation to which paper, ink, and dyes are subject. Photography has become my retirement vocation. I also have been storing images on CDs and now on DVDs. One thing that concerns me a bit is that no current storage technology, including CD/DVD, can guarantee permanence. I've taken to using the highest quality CDs---I haven't yet found the equivalent for DVDs---to store the most important pictures. Any old thing would work for me since I expect I won't last all that much longer, but I would like my children, grandchildren, and beyond to be able to access the pictures too. >> ... I >> have to go through NU's Library website, which I can do from home. The [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Thanks for the reply. >Photography has become my retirement vocation. I also have been storing >images on CDs and now on DVDs. One thing that concerns me a bit is >that no current storage technology, including CD/DVD, can guarantee >permanence. I've taken to using the highest quality CDs---I haven't >yet found the equivalent for DVDs---to store the most important >pictures. Here's one source for MAM-A DVDs as well as CDs. There are many others, of course. http://www.datamediastore.com/mam-a.html Burney RP in 1995 (age 52) RT in 2000 ADT (Casodex) 10/06 - 8/07 Latest PSA - 0.18 burney dot huff at mindspring dot com [snip] > Photography has become my retirement vocation. I also have been storing > images on CDs and now on DVDs. One thing that concerns me a bit is [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > all that much longer, but I would like my children, grandchildren, and > beyond to be able to access the pictures too. My guess is that the bigger issue will be the availability of hardware and software to _read_ those CD's and DVD's. Imagine if right now you had data stored on Syquest Cartridges, for example. Can you even buy a floppy disk reader any more? I have a couple of old 8-track tapes that I'd like to convert to mp3's. I'm sure the data is good... but try to find a player :-) I also have some programs on punched paper tape... Despite all it's frailties, there is something to be said for a good old hard copy.  SignatureDedman -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > ... > My guess is that the bigger issue will be the availability of [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > to mp3's. I'm sure the data is good... but try to find a > player :-) I also have some programs on punched paper tape... Good points. Right now, the DVD players, and presumably the new Blu-Ray players, are backwards compatible. I don't know how long that will continue. For similar reasons, we need to think about the longevity of the logical encoding formats we use. Proprietary RAW formats for images may well change and become unreadable in future systems. I also wonder if the currently ubiquitous JPEG compression and JFIF file layout will be replaced by JPEG2000 and some different file layout. It can't happen soon, but maybe it can happen. For those with words to preserve, I think it makes a lot of sense to consider plain ASCII text (which is also Unicode UTF-8 compatible) rather than formats like Microsoft Word - which change every few years. The new Word 2007 uses a new file format by default. For quite a while already I believe Word versions have stopped supporting the Word 1, 2, 3, etc. formats, though converters may still be available. So if you want your diary to survive, Notepad, or a word processor configured to output plain text, will be a lot safer than using any Word (or WordPerfect, or Lotus, or even OpenOffice etc.) format. > Despite all it's frailties, there is something to be said for a > good old hard copy. True, though copying that 300 page novel you've just produced in your typewriter can be something of a chore. And be sure to use acid-free paper. Alan So far I've had no problems Googling stuff I posted way last century, for better or worse. If I really wanted to preserve stuff, I'd archive it on two or more archive storage websites. In the meantime, I find Google's archives of my and others' posts very useful for many purposes and a great time-saver, and I have yet to find anything I really wish I could retract. Any medium on which I can use a keyword search to find within 0.193 seconds something I or others said a decade ago is OK by me. If I wanted to hide something, I'd never have posted it in the first place, and I'm not going to waste time sweating or trying to hide a few simple misstatements out of tens of thousands of posts. Ye old 80/20 rule works here, too. I.P. > ... If I really wanted to preserve stuff, I'd archive > it on two or more archive storage websites. In the meantime, I find [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > within 0.193 seconds something I or others said a decade ago is OK by > me. ... You're right about the searching, but I don't know about the permanence. Before Google there was Deja News. Google bought the Deja News operation and first announced that they were not going to keep the entire archive, just the recent stuff. They were going to toss the rest into the great bit bucket in the sky. There was a public outcry, and Google gave in and put the whole archive online. But it was basically a business decision. Under other circumstances or management they could make a different business decision. Maybe Google will still be in business for a hundred years. Or maybe not. Who would have thought that the technology giant RCA would dry up and wither away? But even if they're still here, and still offering newsgroup access, and still maintaining an archive, will they archive all groups? They pick and choose now. If prostate cancer is cured in ten years, will old postings from a.s.c.p be on Google twenty years from now? Or will our postings and our fellowship fade away along with our bodies? Alan > Photography has become my retirement vocation. I also have been storing > images on CDs and now on DVDs. One thing that concerns me a bit is that [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > but I would like my children, grandchildren, and beyond to be able to > access the pictures too. Finally, something of which I am somewhat of an expert. You are dead right about "permanent" media. Most states require "permanent" records to be recorded on microfilm(fiche). Even paper has a shelf life of between 100 and 200 years, depending on how well it is maintained. Electronic media? Hell, that my be the worst. Records in my company were first kept on 15 mb hard drives. These were essentially 15 platters that went into a cabinet about half the size of a washer or dryer. That was only 20 years ago. Then came 8" floppies, then 5¼ floppies, then 3½" floppies. So, in 30 years we went through 4 evolutions of electronic media every one of which is now obsolete. CDs are on their way out. DVDs are starting to come to a standard. Flashdrives a few years ago were 256 MB, then 1GB and now 20GB and may easily be replaced by something the size of a dime that fits in your watch. I wonder if the Internet will become the new "permanent", albeit virtual, medium. > That was only 20 years ago. Mistyped. It was 40 years ago. 1967. >> That was only 20 years ago. > >Mistyped. It was 40 years ago. 1967. It seems like yesterday....... Burney RP in 1995 (age 52) RT in 2000 ADT (Casodex) 10/06 - 8/07 Latest PSA - 0.18 burney dot huff at mindspring dot com
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