{"id":1902,"date":"2012-04-30T17:13:32","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T23:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/?p=1902"},"modified":"2012-04-30T17:16:59","modified_gmt":"2012-04-30T23:16:59","slug":"who-can-and-should-have-access-to-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/2012\/04\/30\/who-can-and-should-have-access-to-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Who can and should have access to research?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/files\/2011\/04\/OpenAccesslogo_lockOnly.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-766\" style=\"border: 0pt none; float: left; padding: 0.5em;\" title=\"Open Access logo\" src=\"http:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/files\/2011\/04\/OpenAccesslogo_lockOnly.jpg\" alt=\"Open Access logo\" width=\"107\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>In a recent article in The Economist magazine, it makes the argument that &#8220;When research is funded by the taxpayer or by charities, the results should be available to all without charge.&#8221; The article goes on to point out the huge profits (and increases in profits) by publishers, and how scientists are making this possible by providing their research free-of-charge in exchange for publication.<\/p>\n<p>This is not a call to break up or bring down big-name publishers. They provide services that libraries have come to depend on. But if research is funded by <em>public funding<\/em> &#8212; gathered through taxes or charitable contributions &#8212; then the public should have complete and prompt access to its results, good or bad.<\/p>\n<p>Publishers counter with (among many claims):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Their work provides added value to the research, and<\/li>\n<li>The current one-year embargo is not enough time to recoup the investment made in adding value.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/JNHPHC\">testimony before Congress<\/a>, one publisher argued<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The cutting-edge research in psychology published by APA is rarely obsolete within a year and may have a shelf life of five to 10 years or more. Furthermore, only 16 percent of the eventual &#8216;lifetime&#8217; usage of APA journal articles&#8212;in the form of downloads&#8212;occurs within the first year after publication.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The best rebuttal to this argument actually came in the form of a comment on the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: publishers &#8220;neither pay for the intellectual content they publish (authors get no payments including no royalties), nor do they pay for the intellectual effort of the peer-reviewers &#8211; all of that professional\/academic expertise is given to them for free.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In addition, is the &#8220;added value&#8221; anywhere close to the prices publishers charge for access to this information? Now there is an area ripe for research!<\/p>\n<p>One argument for open access is seldom, if at all, being made, and for this author, it is the most compelling: lives may hang in the balance. Some people cannot wait one, five or ten years for the publication of research that will lead to life-saving medical advances. Loosely described, building up collected knowledge of research is like arranging a box of dominoes so they are all standing on end, and next to one another. Arrange them all in the right way, and a single tap will send them all cascading into one another, until all are knocked down.&#160; Researching and determining steps to treatments to take down conditions such as diabetes, various cancers, treatment-resistant diseases, and a myriad of other maladies should occur promptly, and benefit the many, not be delayed for the profit of a few.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Argument for #openaccess to publicly-funded research promptly in the hopes of saving or improving lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,78],"tags":[4798,193,543],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-research","tag-medical-research","tag-open-access","tag-open-access-publishing"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 15:16:11","action":"category","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1902"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1904,"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1902"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.med.utah.edu\/blog\/eccles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}