Category: Self-Archiving

Rep. John Conyers Replies to Lessig and Eisen about Fair Copyright in Research Works Act

Rep. John Conyers has replied to Lawrence Lessig and Michael Eisen's "Is John Conyers Shilling for Special Interests?" article about the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.

Here's an excerpt:

The policy Professor Lessig supports, they [opponents] argue, would limit publishers' ability to charge for subscriptions since the same articles will soon be publicly available for free. If journals begin closing their doors or curtailing peer review, or foist peer review costs on academic authors (who are already pay from their limited budgets printing costs in some cases), the ultimate harm will be to open inquiry and scientific progress may be severe. And the journals most likely to be affected may be non-profit, scientific society based journals. Once again, a policy change slipped through the appropriations process in the dark of night may enhance open access to information, but it may have unintended consequences that are severe. This only emphasizes the need for proper consideration of these issues in open session.

Following the Money Trail: MAPLight.org Report on Campaign Contributions and the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act

MAPLight.org has released "Report on HR 801, Fair Copyright in Research Works Act: Report Shows Campaign Contributions Given to Sponsors of Fair Copyright in Research Works Act." (Thanks to the Huffington Post and Open Access News.)

Here's an excerpt:

MAPLight.org's research team released data today showing campaign contributions given to members of the House Committee on the Judiciary from publishing interests during the 2008 election cycle (Jan. 2007 through Dec. 2008). MAPLight.org analyzed campaign contribution data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics and determined that the publishing industry gave an average of $5,150 to each of the bill's five bill sponsors and an average of $2,506 to each of the other 34 non-sponsor members of the Committee. Total publishing industry contributions given to the House Committee on the Judiciary were $110,950.

PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) Web Site Launch

The PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) project has launched its Web site.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

PEER is a pioneering collaboration between publishers, repositories and the research community, which aims to investigate the effects of the large-scale deposit (so called Green Open Access) on user access, author visibility, journal viability and the broader European research environment.

The project will run until 2011, during which time over 50,000 European stage two (accepted) manuscripts from up to 300 journals will become available for archiving.

The PEER website will serve the three key stakeholder groups of publishers, repository/library community and researchers (both as authors and readers), and will also provide information accessible to the general public.

Content will include news updates, as well as reports on various aspects of the project as PEER progresses.

ALA Issues Call to Action about Fair Copyright in Research Works Act

ALA has issued a call to action about the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801). The alert includes a link to a Web form that will allow you to e-mail a House Judiciary Committee Member from your district about the bill (will not work if your Representative does not serve on the Judiciary Committee).

The Budapest Open Access Initiative Turns Seven

The Budapest Open Access Initiative declaration turned seven on February 14th.

Here's an excerpt from the Peter Suber's posting about the BOAI:

Released on February 14, 2002, the BOAI "statement of principle,…statement of strategy, and…statement of commitment" was the first to offer a public definition of OA, the first to use the term "open access", the first to call for OA journals and OA repositories as complementary strategies, the first to call for OA in all disciplines and countries, and the first to be accompanied by significant funding. A good number of OA projects were already under way, but the BOAI helped to catalyze the OA movement and give it energy, unity, and identity.

Support Open Access: Contact House Judiciary Committee Members to Save the NIH Public Access Policy

As indicated in recent postings ("Fair Copyright in Research Works Act: Ten Associations and Advocacy Groups Send Letter to Judiciary Committee Members Opposing Act" and "Urgent Call to Action: Conyers Bill Opposing NIH Open Access Policy May Soon Come to House Vote"), the fight over the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801) is heating up.

If you want to oppose the bill and support the NIH Public Access policy and open access, you should contact members of the House Judiciary Committee and your Representative immediately by letter, e-mail, fax, or phone. If a Judiciary Committee member is in your district, your opposition will have considerably more impact. If you are uncertain, about who your House member is, you can use the The Hill's search form to find out. The "Contact" tab for the House member's The Hill record, includes a "Contact [Congressional representative] via Web Form" function that can be used to send e-mail messages.

Below is a list of Judiciary Committee members and a draft letter from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access’ call to action.

Draft letter text:

Dear Representative;

On behalf of [your organization], I strongly urge you to oppose H.R. 801, “the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act,” introduced to the House Judiciary Committee on February 3, 2009. This bill would amend the U.S. Copyright Code, prohibiting federal agencies from requiring as a condition of funding agreements public access to the products of the research they fund. This will significantly inhibit our ability to advance scientific discovery and to stimulate innovation in all scientific disciplines.

Most critically, H.R. 801 would reverse the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy, prohibit American taxpayers from accessing the results of the crucial biomedical research funded by their taxpayer dollars, and stifle critical advancements in life-saving research and scientific discovery.

Because of the NIH Public Access Policy, millions of Americans now have access to vital health care information from the NIH’s PubMed Central database. Under the current policy, nearly 3,000 new biomedical manuscripts are deposited for public accessibility each month. H.R.801 would prohibit the deposit of these manuscripts, seriously impeding the ability of researchers, physicians, health care professionals, and families to access and use this critical health-related information in a timely manner.

H.R. 801 affects not only the results of biomedical research produced by the NIH, but also scientific research coming from all other federal agencies. Access to critical information on energy, the environment, climate change, and hundreds of other areas that directly impact the lives and well being of the public would be unfairly limited by this proposed legislation.

[Why you support taxpayer access and the NIH policy].

The NIH and other agencies must be allowed to ensure timely, public access to the results of research funded with taxpayer dollars. Please oppose H.R.801.

Postscript: ALA has issued a call to action about the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801). The alert includes a link to a Web form that will allow you to e-mail a House Judiciary Committee Member from your district about the bill (will not work if your Representative does not serve on the Judiciary Committee).

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has a Web form (with letter text) that you can use to e-mail your Congressional representatives.

The bill has been referred to the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy.

Fair Copyright in Research Works Act: Ten Associations and Advocacy Groups Send Letter to Judiciary Committee Members Opposing Act

Ten associations and advocacy groups, including AALL, ACRL, ALA, ARL, and GWLA, have sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee members opposing the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801).

Here's an excerpt:

The U.S. government funds research with the expectation that new ideas and discoveries from the research will propel science, stimulate the economy, and improve the lives and welfare of Americans. Public support for science is enhanced when the public directly sees the benefits from our nation's investment in scientific research. Yet H.R. 801 would reverse the only U.S. policy for public access to research, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and make it impossible for other agencies to enact similar policies.

Scientific research is advanced by broad dissemination of knowledge, and the subsequent building upon the work of others. To this end, the NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the results of our nation's $29 billion annual investment in research reach the broadest possible audience. The Policy requires that, in exchange for receiving federal research dollars, grantees deposit the final electronic manuscript of their peer-reviewed research results into PubMed Central, NIH’s digital archive, to be made publicly available within 12 months—and was specifically implemented in full compliance with current U.S. copyright law.

The NIH Policy achieves several notable goals: First, it ensures broad public access to the results of NIH's funded research, allowing scientists and researchers to collaborate and engage in cutting-edge research. Such access allows for greater sharing of information, speeding discovery, medical advances, and innovations.

Second, the NIH Policy ensures that the U.S. government has a permanent archive of these critical, publicly funded biomedical research results, ensuring that results can be built upon by not only this generation, but also future generations, of researchers.

Finally, the Policy creates a welcome degree of accountability and transparency, which enable us to better manage our collective investments in the NIH research portfolio and ensure the maximum possible benefits to the public in return.

At the direction of Congress, the NIH Public Access Policy, in place as a voluntary measure since 2005, was recently strengthened to a mandatory policy. As a result, the rate of eligible manuscripts being deposited for public accessibility quickly increased from 19% to 60%. This requirement proved crucial to ensuring that the more than 80,000 articles resulting from NIH funding each year are, for the first time, available to any researcher, physician, faculty member, student, or member of the public who wants them.

H.R.801 presupposes that the NIH Public Access Policy undermines the rights of the author and conflicts with U.S. copyright law. As library organizations and allies we fully respect copyright law and the protection it affords content creators, content owners, and content users. NIH-funded research is copyrightable and copyright belongs to the author. The NIH Policy requires only the grant of a non-exclusive license to NIH, fully consistent with federal policies such as Circular A- 110 and Circular A-102. This policy leaves the author free to transfer some or all of the exclusive rights under copyright to a journal publisher or to assign these anywhere they so choose. Attached please find an issue brief detailing how the NIH Public Access Policy does not affect copyright law [see the letter for the brief].

The NIH Public Access Policy advances science, improves access by the public to federally funded research, provides for effective archiving strategies for these resources, and ensures accountability of our federal investment. Given the proven success of the revised NIH Public Access Policy and the promise of public access to federally funded research, we firmly oppose H.R.801 and ask that you do the same. Thank you for considering the stake and position of the key constituencies in this discussion.

Read more about it at "Conyers Introduces H.R. 801, "The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act."

Urgent Call to Action: Conyers Bill Opposing NIH Open Access Policy May Soon Come to House Vote

There are strong indications that Rep. John Conyers, Jr. will try to get a House vote on the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801) much more quickly than previously thought. If you want to oppose the bill and support the NIH Public Access policy, you should contact members of the House Judiciary Committee and your Representative immediately by e-mail, fax, phone, or letter. This is especially important if a Judiciary Committee member is in your district.

Here's an excerpt from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access call to action to defeat the Conyers bill:

All supporters of public access—researchers, libraries, campus administrators, patient advocates, publishers, and others—are asked to please contact your Representative . . . to express your support for public access to taxpayer-funded research and ask that he or she oppose H.R.801. Draft letter text is included below. . . .

H.R. 801 is designed to amend current copyright law and create a new category of copyrighted works (Section 201, Title 17). In effect, it would:

  1. Prohibit all U.S. federal agencies from conditioning funding agreements to require that works resulting from federal support be made publicly available if those works are either: a) funded in part by sources other than a U.S. agency, or b) the result of "meaningful added value" to the work from an entity that is not party to the agreement.
  2. Prohibit U.S. agencies from obtaining a license to publicly distribute, perform, or display such work by, for example, placing it on the Internet.
  3. Stifle access to a broad range of federally funded works, overturning the crucially important NIH Public Access Policy and preventing other agencies from implementing similar policies.
  4. Because it is so broadly framed, the proposed bill would require an overhaul of the well-established procurement rules in effect for all federal agencies, and could disrupt day-to-day procurement practices across the federal government.
  5. Repeal the longstanding "federal purpose" doctrine, under which all federal agencies that fund the creation of a copyrighted work reserve the "royalty-free, nonexclusive right to reproduce, publish, or otherwise use the work" for any federal purpose. This will severely limit the ability of U.S. federal agencies to use works that they have funded to support and fulfill agency missions and to communicate with and educate the public.

Because of the NIH Public Access Policy, millions of Americans now have access to vital health care information through the PubMed Central database. Under the current policy, nearly 3,000 new biomedical manuscripts are deposited for public accessibility each month. H.R.801 would prohibit the deposit of these manuscripts, seriously impeding the ability of researchers, physicians, health care professionals, and families to access and use this critical health-related information in a timely manner.

All supporters of public access—researchers, libraries, campus administrators, patient advocates, publishers, and others—are asked to contact their Representatives to let them know you support public access to federally funded research and oppose H.R. 801. Again, the proposed legislation would effectively reverse the NIH Public Access Policy, as well as make it impossible for other federal agencies to put similar policies into place. . . .

Draft letter text:

Dear Representative;

On behalf of [your organization], I strongly urge you to oppose H.R. 801, “the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act,” introduced to the House Judiciary Committee on February 3, 2009. This bill would amend the U.S. Copyright Code, prohibiting federal agencies from requiring as a condition of funding agreements public access to the products of the research they fund. This will significantly inhibit our ability to advance scientific discovery and to stimulate innovation in all scientific disciplines.

Most critically, H.R. 801 would reverse the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy, prohibit American taxpayers from accessing the results of the crucial biomedical research funded by their taxpayer dollars, and stifle critical advancements in life-saving research and scientific discovery.

Because of the NIH Public Access Policy, millions of Americans now have access to vital health care information from the NIH’s PubMed Central database. Under the current policy, nearly 3,000 new biomedical manuscripts are deposited for public accessibility each month. H.R.801 would prohibit the deposit of these manuscripts, seriously impeding the ability of researchers, physicians, health care professionals, and families to access and use this critical health-related information in a timely manner.

H.R. 801 affects not only the results of biomedical research produced by the NIH, but also scientific research coming from all other federal agencies. Access to critical information on energy, the environment, climate change, and hundreds of other areas that directly impact the lives and well being of the public would be unfairly limited by this proposed legislation.

[Why you support taxpayer access and the NIH policy].

The NIH and other agencies must be allowed to ensure timely, public access to the results of research funded with taxpayer dollars. Please oppose H.R.801.

SHERPA's RoMEO Service Tops 500 Publisher Self-Archiving Policies

SHERPA's RoMEO Service now includes over 500 publisher self-archiving policies

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

If an academic author wants to put their research articles on-line, they are faced with an increasingly complex situation. Evidence shows that citations to articles made openly accessible in this way are taken up and cited more often than research that is simply published in journals. Also some funding agencies require open access archiving for their research, to increase the use of the information generated.

However, some publishers prohibit authors from using their own articles in this way. Others allow it, but only under certain conditions, while others are quite happy for authors to show their work in this way.

Authors can be left confused: RoMEO helps to clarify the situation . . . .

The RoMEO service, provided by the award winning SHERPA Partnership*, uses a simple colour-code to classify policies and inform authors of what can be done with their articles, and offers users the ability to:

  • View summaries of publishers' copyright policies in relation to self-archiving
  • View if publisher policies comply with funding regulations, as some publishers are too restrictive and cannot be used to publish funded research
  • To search journal and publisher information by Journal Title, Publisher Name and ISSN

Additional RoMEO provides lists of

  • Publishers that allow the use of their PDFs in Institutional Repositories
  • Publisher with Paid Options

RoMEO is seen as an essential resource by many in the Open Access community. RoMEO is funded by JISC and the Wellcome Trust. Journal information is kindly provided by the British Library's Zetoc service hosted by MIMAS

More Coverage of the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act

Here are some additional articles/postings about the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.

Fair Copyright in Research Works Act: Bill Opposing Open Access Reintroduced in House

Rep. John Conyers has reintroduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801) in the House.

Here's an excerpt from Peter Suber's posting:

The Fair Copyright Act is to fair copyright what the Patriot Act was to patriotism.  It would repeal the OA policy at the NIH and prevent similar OA policies at any federal agency.  The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where Conyers is Chairman, and where he has consolidated his power since last year by abolishing the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.  The Judiciary Committee does not specialize in science, science policy, or science funding, but copyright. 

The premise of the bill, urged by the publishing lobby, is that the NIH policy somehow violates copyright law.  The premise is false and cynical.  If the NIH policy violated copyrights, or permitted the violation of copyrights, publishers wouldn't have to back this bill to amend US copyright law.  Instead, they'd be in court where they'd already have a remedy.  For a detailed analysis of the bill and point by point rebuttal to the publishing lobby's rhetoric, see my article from October 2008.

I'll have more soon on ways to mobilize in opposition to the bill and support the NIH and the principle of public access to publicly-funded research.  Meantime, if you're a US citizen and your representative is a member of the Judiciary Committee, it's not to early to fire off an email/fax/letter/phone call to your representative opposing the bill and defending the NIH policy.  You can find ammo here:

Also see: "Bill Banning NIH-Like Public Access is Reintroduced in Congress."

"SWORD: Cutting Through the Red Tape to Populate Learning Materials Repositories"

JISC has released "SWORD: Cutting Through the Red Tape to Populate Learning Materials Repositories."

Here's the abstract:

This in-depth article by Sarah Currier, the Product Manager for Intrallect Ltd., introduces SWORD (Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit) to those interested in sharing, reuse, repurposing and management of teaching and learning materials. The article provides an overview of the tool, technical details of how SWORD works and four case study vignettes, or SWORD Stories, on work that is already under way, which illustrate how SWORD streamlines the process of depositing learning materials into repositories.

Repository Deposit Software: SWORD PHP Library Released

Stuart Lewis has released a PHP library for the SWORD (Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit) software.

Here's an excerpt from his post:

There are many web applications that could deposit into repositories using SWORD, and many of these are written in PHP. Examples might include open source Content Management Systems, Blogs or Wikis. By using this library you can easily retrieve service documents and make deposits by using the API provided. There are two simple method calls (one to retrieve a service document and one to deposit a file). In addition there is a packager included that can package a file and metadata together into a package format supported by both DSpace and EPrints. This is the same code which is used to power the Facebook SWORD deposit tool (http://fb.swordapp.org/).

Author's Rights, Tout de Suite

Author's Rights, Tout de Suite, the latest Digital Scholarship publication, is designed to give journal article authors a quick introduction to key aspects of author's rights and to foster further exploration of this topic through liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links to pertinent Web sites.

It is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License, and it can be freely used for any noncommercial purpose, including derivative works, in accordance with the license.

The prior publication in the Tout de Suite series, Institutional Repositories, Tout de Suite, is also available.

PEER Project to Examine Large-Scale "Green" Open Access Impacts

The PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) project will examine "the effects of the large-scale, systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts . . . on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research." The project will conclude in 2011.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The aim of PEER is to build a substantial body of evidence, by developing an 'observatory' to monitor the effects of systematic archiving over time. Participating publishers will collectively contribute 300 journals to the project and supporting research studies will address issues such as:

  • How large-scale archiving will affect journal viability
  • Whether it increases access
  • How it will affect the broader ecology of European research
  • Which factors influence the readiness to deposit in institutional and disciplinary repositories and what the associated costs might be
  • Models to illustrate how traditional publishing systems can coexist with self-archiving

The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), the European Science Foundation, Gottingen State and University Library, the Max Planck Society and INRIA will collaborate on PEER, supported by the SURF Foundation and University of Bielefeld, which will contribute the expertise of the EU-funded DRIVER project.

RoMEO List of Publishers Who Allow Their PDFs to Be Deposited in Institutional Repositories

SHERPA's RoMEO service has made available "Publishers Allowing the Deposition of Their Published Version/PDF in Institutional Repositories."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

SHERPA has analysed its records to determine which of the 414 publishers listed allow authors to deposit the publishers' version or publishers' PDF of a journal article into the author's institutional repository. 50 publishers allow immediate, un-embargoed deposit into repositories—even more allow use in restricted circumstances. This means that there is a large volume of work which can be deposited directly into repositories even if the author has not retained their own final draft. . . .

We have separated the publishers into sub-sets, indicating any restrictions that are imposed by the publishers on the use of their versions. The sub-sets are: no restrictions, embargos, fee required and embargo & fee required.

Ireland's Higher Education Authority Enacts Open Access Mandate

Ireland's Higher Education Authority, a major research funding agency in that country, has enacted an open access mandate that requires searchers to "lodge their publications resulting in whole or in part from HEA-funded research in an open access repository as soon as is practical after publication, and to be made openly accessible within 6 calendar months at the latest, subject to copyright agreement."

Stevan Harnad reports that this is the "world's 52nd Green OA Self-Archiving mandate (the 27th funder mandate)."

NIH Mandate Works: Article Deposits in PubMed Central Dramatically Increase

Library Journal Academic Newswire reports that article deposits in PubMed Central have dramatically increased (e.g., 2,593 deposits in May 2008 vs. 948 in May 2007) as a result the NIH mandate, which requires "all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication."

Read more about it at "PubMed Central Submissions Jump Sharply Under New NIH Policy."

RoMEO: Now with 400+ Publisher Self-Archiving Policies

SHERPA's RoMEO service now contains over 400 publisher self-archiving policies.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The RoMEO service, provided by the award winning SHERPA Partnership, uses a simple colour-code to classify policies and inform authors of what can be done with their articles, and offers users the ability to:

  • View summaries of publishers' copyright policies in relation to self-archiving
  • View if publisher policies comply with funding regulations, as some publishers are too restrictive and cannot be used to publish funded research
  • To search journal and publisher information by Journal Title, Publisher Name and ISSN

RoMEO is seen as an essential resource by many in the Open Access community. RoMEO is funded by JISC and the Wellcome Trust. Journal information is kindly provided by the British Library's Zetoc service hosted by MIMAS

Latest APA Deposit Policy Allows Authors to Self-Archive Articles in Institutional Repositories and on Personal Web Sites

The latest revision of the American Psychological Association's "Document Deposit Policy and Procedures for APA Journals" permits authors to self-archive final peer-reviewed copies of NIH-funded articles in institutional repositories and on personal Web sites.

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

Authors of manuscripts to be published in APA journals may post a copy of the final peer-reviewed manuscript, as a word processing, PDF, or other type file, on their personal Web site or on their employer's server after the manuscript is accepted for publication. The following conditions would prevail: The posted article must carry an APA copyright notice and include a link to the APA journal home page, and the posted article must include the following statement: "This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.” APA does not provide electronic copies of the APA published version for this purpose, and authors are not permitted to scan in the APA published version.

The revised policy also indicates that the final published article may be deposited by the APA in PubMed Central if required by a funding agency other than the NIH (for NIH-funded research "the final 'Word' version of the author-generated manuscript with all changes based on peer-review editorial feedback and found acceptable by the editor" will be deposited by the APA without charging the author's institution).

Peter Suber has commented on this revised policy in his "New Interim Policy from the APA" posting.

SPARC and ARL Refute AAP Assertions about NIH Public Access Policy

SPARC and ARL have released a white paper, NIH Public Access Policy Does Not Affect U.S. Copyright Law, that refutes assertions made by the Association of American Publishers about the NIH Public Access Policy.

Here's an excerpt from the Summary:

Contrary to the AAP assertions, the NIH Public Access Policy does not affect U.S. copyright law in any way. NIH has added a condition to pre-existing licensing terms in its grant agreements that affirms it can legally provide public access to publicly funded research. This change in the terms of NIH grant agreements is fully consistent with copyright law. Copyright is an author’s right. Researchers are the authors of the articles they write with NIH support. In exchange for substantial federal funding, these researchers voluntarily agree to grant the federal government a license to provide public access to the results of publicly funded research. NIH receives a non-exclusive license from federally funded researchers, who retain their copyrights and are free to enter into traditional publication agreements with biomedical journals or assign these anywhere they so choose, subject to the license to NIH.

This change in the terms of the Public Access Policy has no relation to United States compliance with international intellectual property treaties. The Berne Convention on Copyright and the TRIPS Agreement concern the substance of copyright law, not the terms of licenses granted to the United States in exchange for federal funding. It is longstanding federal policy that in all federal contracts that pay for the creation of copyrighted works, the funding agency must receive a copyright license in exchange for federal funding. It is well recognized that these licenses given by authors have no effect on the robust set of protections given to authors in the United States Copyright Act and similarly raise no issues with respect to international copyright law.

APA Backs Off $2,500-per-Article PubMed Central Deposit Fee

The American Psychological Association is reconsidering its previously announced $2,500-per-article PubMed Central deposit fee. (See the updated Open Access News "APA Will Charge Authors for Green OA" posting.")

Here's an excerpt from the APA's just revised "Document Deposit Policy and Procedures for APA Journals":

A new document deposit policy of the American Psychological Association (APA) requiring a publication fee to deposit manuscripts in PubMed Central based on research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is currently being re-examined and will not be implemented at this time. . . . APA will soon be releasing more detailed information about the complex issues involved in the implementation of the new NIH Public Access Policy.