House Bill Will Ban Open Access to Scientific Publications

These articles are interpreting the bill slightly wrong, although the end result is mostly the same. The bill bans <i>government-mandated</i> open access, but scientists are still allowed to <i>voluntarily</i> submit their papers to open access journals such as PLoS.

There is a real possibility that lobbying by <i>scientists</i> is at least behind this. I can easily imagine someone so angry that their grant forbids them from sending their paper to <i>Nature</i> (which has prestige above any open journal) that they write to their representatives.

I wish Americans wouldn't call a bill an act until such time as it is enacted. When I read about the Blah Blah Blah Act, it is often not clear whether it's a law or merely a proposal for a law. The British practice of always calling it the Blah Blah Blah Bill until such time as it receives royal assent is better, IMO.

<i>"John Conyers (D-MI) apparently has a problem with this. He is pushing a bill through Congress that will literally ban the open access of these papers, forcing scientists to only publish in journals. This may not sound like a big deal, but journals are very expensive."</i><p>Who would have foreseen that academic journals had such lobbying power? I am disgusted.<p>Many universities are following MIT OCW's great example and making their lectures and course materials available online for free. Only a spineless, corrupt politician would try to go the other direction.