Comments needed for NIH proposal

Dear Scholars, Librarians, Policy makers, Funding and charitable agencies executives,

Please take 2 minutes to have this world changed. There are just few days left to meet the NIH deadline for a public comment on an NIH (Sept 3, 2004) note and call for comments on "<http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-064.html>Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information".

All you need is to fulfill few questionnaire fields in an original NIH form (accessible <http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/public_access/add.htm>at this link) and press a Submit button.

It took just two minutes (!) of my time to tick twice I "agree" to support for the NIH plan and provide basic info (such as name and affiliation).

NIH form (in addition to a submitter name and affiliation) asks two basics questions . The first one is regarding "the proposed Public Access CONCEPT" (simple tick 'agree' is sufficient unless you decide to type your comments in the provided comments field). The second question asks for a "feedback on the proposed IMPLEMENTATION PLAN". Again. simple "agree" will be sufficient unless you decide to provide additional sentense or two. The detailed wording of the NIH plan on both questionnaire items is provided below as supplement.

Can you imagine that NIH plan approval means that great number of scholarly articles will become available at the NIH PubMed Central web right next year. Free of charge and with no subscription abuse. In case you reside outside US, NIH plan may prompt your government to follow the US pioneering experience, so, please don't think the NIH plan is not your nation affair. Remember science is global!

As a scientist I feel confident that NIH plan does not make harm to scholars. Oppositely, the plan aims "establishing a comprehensive, searchable electronic [archival] resource of NIH-funded research results [first published in regular peer-review journals] and providing free access to all [i.e. scholars and public]". In fact, such public archive - <http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/>PubMed Central (PMC) - does exist, so, it will be enhanced with the articles published previously. Could you ever dream of it?

But dont' be fooled, this will not happen automatically, with no support by you. Commercial (and even scientific society) publishers aggressively oppose NIH plan. <http://neurobiologyoflipids.org/content/3/10/neurolipids112004-02.pdf>They have what to loose, do you? As journal publishers restrict access to your published articles why not to allow NIH co-deposit your contribution in a central searchable and most trusted archive? Sounds reasonable? It sounds great, don't you think so?

Remember. It may take as little as 2 minutes to send your vote to the NIH. The NIH comment form <http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/public_access/add.htm>is available at this link. Don't wait your colleagues do it. Do it now yourself.


Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD
neuroscientist and editor
http://neurobiologyoflipids.org/myjournalindex.html