Progress toward Public Access to Science

Harold Varmus

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060101

Abstract

Progress toward Public Access to Science

Highlights

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is about to cross an important threshold
Not all articles in PubMed Central (PMC) are accessible on the same terms or timelines, and the public libraries and the laudable new policies from funding agencies still fall short of the full potential envisioned for a digital world of science
Not every important new article will have been supported by enlightened funding agencies and fall within the reach of their mandates; those may not appear in PMC at all

Summary

Introduction

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is about to cross an important threshold. Starting April 7th, the authors of research reports that describe work supported by the NIH will be required to deposit accepted manuscripts into PubMed Central (PMC), the NIH’s public digital library of full-text articles, with the understanding that the articles will be freely available for all to view no later than 12 months after publication. Since NIH-supported investigators publish about 80,000 papers each year, many of them in journals that currently do not contribute their articles to PMC, the library will soon grow at about twice its already impressive rate.

Results

Conclusion