Anonymous Patron writes “Government Health Researchers Pressed to Share Data at No Charge; Political momentum is growing for a change in federal policy that would require government-funded health researchers to make the results of their work freely available on the Internet.
Advocates say taxpayers should not have to pay hundreds of dollars for subscriptions to scientific journals to see the results of research they already have paid for. Many journals charge $35 or more just to see one article — a cost that can snowball as patients seek the latest information about their illnesses.”
In the interim
In the interim librarians at libraries where these journals are available should do their best to make them available without charge to local and remote patrons. While most if not all medical school libraries will allow public access, and many are public institutions that require such access, there are many more librarians that have access to these resources about which the public may not know.
Medical librarians at hospitals and medical centers and send a note to their public library colleagues letting them know what journals they have on hand, and available electronically. These institutions would do well to make this information available to the public as both a marketing tool and a public health resource.
Librarians who retain access to their library school’s library either as an alumni or as a courtesy for MLS students often have access to these journals through their academic library. I know that I have access to FSU’s libraries including the medical library because I am still taking classes (I may get the post-MLS specialist certification) and I have the same access as any graduate student.
While there is always ILL, many institutions charge for ILL and free access to these information sources is our goal.
We’re librarians; we cannot sit on our hands waiting for legislators to see that information should be free in all senses of the word. We can’t wait for the ALA to pontificate about it. If a fellow librarian needs a journal article and you can supply it please do. If anyone needs one and I can get it for you please ask. In the age of electronic communication we shouldn’t be waiting weeks for a photocopy of an article from Cancer to arrive. That’s just crap.
I agree
All government funded materials should be available for free to their population (other people outside being catered for by ILL).
But in many cases this is going to be an issue firstly for the publishers not the legislative bodies that fund us.
It is the publishers who tie us into restrictive contracts. Elsevier for example, in it’s contract for ScienceDirect says that I may not give access to anyone outside of my unit, nor may I print out a pdf and send it to someone outside of my unit. But if I don’t have a print copy of something how am I supposed to provide copies to interested parties? It is become more common that our scientists are publishing in journals we have no access to atall, print or online so how are we supposed to provide copies?
We shouldn’t be tied into having to negotiate the pre-press word pre-print copies to be able to give our work to people, we should be able to provide the proper finished pdf version to anyone that wants it.
‘Normal’ people (ie the general public/students etc) are not going to spent $30 on one article, or buy a subscription to their magazine so it’s not like the publishers are going to lose out.
Of course legislation from governments to state we must have different contracts with publishers is vital but the publishers need to get on with it first.
When people are effectively already paying maybe 4 times (through taxes)to get an article (government funds us, we pay to get something published, we order print and online copies, the cost of copying and posting to people) you can see how we are all getting ripped off.