Hello California Wikimedians,
There is a state bill being proposed that would introduce open access
requirements for California-funded research. See below for more info.
This would definitely be a positive development for the open knowledge
community.
A fact sheet from the sponsor, Brian Nestande, is available at
http://republican.assembly.ca.gov/member/AD42/?p=myLeg; he's
requesting letters of support be sent to his staffperson at
annabelle.kleist(a)asm.ca.gov.
According to Nestande,
"This bill will require each researcher receiving a state-funded
research grant to submit an electronic copy of their research
publication to the California State Library no later than six months
after the work is published. This policy will apply to peer-reviewed
research publications that have been supported, in whole or in part,
with direct costs from a California state agency, and not
indiscriminately to all public postsecondary faculty members receiving
their salary from the state. The completed research publications will
become openly accessible, free of charge, to the public through an
online database."
cheers,
phoebe
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "MacKenzie Smith" <macsmith(a)ucdavis.edu>
To: "openscience" <openscience(a)ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2013 4:45:31 PM
Subject: State government considering an Open Access bill
Hi list,
I haven't seen any discussion of this here so I wanted to make sure
y'all know that the California State government will conduct a hearing
in Sacramento next Wednesday on AB 609, the California Taxpayer Access
to Publicly Funded Research.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_609&sess=CUR
UC supports the bill with a few amendments (e.g. to align the embargo
terms with the NIH policy and clarify who's affected by it) and will
testify so at the hearing. I'm providing a private letter of support
and encourage you to consider doing likewise (there's an example
attached).
If passed, California would become the first state in the country with
an Open Access requirement for state-funded research, corresponding to
the federal policy now being developed. I gather there is significant
opposition forming from publishers who will be well-represented at the
hearing next week against it. So if you do support the bill, let them
know!
Thanks,
MacKenzie
MacKenzie Smith
University Librarian
University of California, Davis