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Comments on the NIH Enhanced Public Access Policy

Denis G. Baskin and Joseph E. Mazurkiewicz

Editor-in-Chief Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry
President The Histochemical Society

Correspondence to: Denis G. Baskin, PhD, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry, Department of Biological Structure, HSB G-514/Box 357420, University of Washington Medical School, Seattle, WA 98195-7420

To authors and readers of the Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published its policy on enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from NIH-funded research. "Beginning May 2, 2005, NIH-funded investigators are requested to submit to the NIH National Library of Medicine's (NLM) PubMed Central (PMC) an electronic version of the author's final manuscript upon acceptance for publication. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all modifications from the publishing peer review process" (National Institutes of Health 2005). This policy covers manuscripts accepted after May 2, 2005, and as noted in the preceding quote, this is a "request" not a requirement.

According to the NIH, the purpose of the policy is to (1) create a stable archive of peer-reviewed research publications resulting from NIH-funded research, which will be permanent and searchable and (2) create a means for NIH-funded researchers to fulfill parts of their reporting requirements. The archive will be accessible to the public, a requirement demanded by patients and patient rights groups. The NIH policy and supplementary information and background may be found online at http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm. NIH reports that additional information about the submission process and refinements to the policy will also be added to this site as needed. We strongly encourage our authors to read the policy and background and become familiar with the policy.

The Histochemical Society, publisher of the Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry, strongly supports public access to scientific research but does not support the current NIH version of public access. NIH policy fails to consider the costs of bringing research to publication and thereby ignores the impact this policy could have on scholarly publishing. Furthermore, building an archive is costly and duplicates archives that already have been established by both the private and not-for-profit sectors. In partnership with Stanford University's HighWire Press, the Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry and over 800 other scholarly journals currently archive over 900,000 scholarly articles free of charge on the HighWire Press site.

As a not-for-profit society publisher, The Histochemical Society releases all articles published in the Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry within 12 months of publication. Through the Journal's publish-ahead-of-print exPRESS articles, all Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry articles are freely available as preprints at the JHC website http://www.jhc.org as soon as they have been accepted for publication. Content older than 12 months and dating back to 1992 is freely available online at our website and the Journal is in the process of digitizing all our previous content. When this project is complete, all of the JHC content older than 12 months and dating back to 1952 will be freely available online. Additionally, the Journal is a participant in HINARI, which offers free or very-low-cost access of biomedical journals to over 70 developing countries.

The Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry is aware that some of our authors may voluntarily choose to submit their manuscripts to PMC under the NIH policy, even though the NIH policy is not mandatory. Toward that end, the Journal has amended its Agreement of Copyright to reflect the NIH policy. We have also added an additional page to our Guidelines for Authors http://www.jhc.org/misc/oapolicy.shtml explaining author and publisher obligations under the guidelines. At this time, the Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry is not permitted by NIH to assist authors in submitting their manuscripts to PMC. The NIH only allows authors to submit their final accepted manuscripts to PMC.

Literature Cited

National Institutes of Health (2005) Final NIH public access policy implementation. http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html. Accessed on April 16, 2005

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Baskin, D. G. Articles by Mazurkiewicz, J. E. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Baskin, D. G. Articles by Mazurkiewicz, J. E. Social Bookmarking                      What's this?

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