Publishers ask NIH to delay open access

At the National Institutes of Health linkurl:open meeting;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54421/ on the new public access mandate yesterday (March 20), publishers continued to criticize the plan and called for the agency to delay implementing it. As part of the Congressional linkurl:appropriations act;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54028/ for FY2008, all articles arising from research funded by NIH funds must be submitted to PubMed Central within 12 months of publication. The NIH implemented this mandate on January 11. NIH director Elias Zerhouni said the agency was "all ears" to recommendations of how to best move forward with implementing the policy. Not surprisingly, representatives of the major scientific publishers -- who have voiced opposition to this mandate -- were the first in line of 24 to give their comment to the NIH director and director of extramural research Norka Ruiz Bravo on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md. Jack Ochs, from the American Chemical Society, gave the first five-minute comment....