Public access

The US Department of Energy has announced its mechanism for providing free public access to scholarly articles that result from research it funds: a collaboration with CHORUS (Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States), a private-sector consortium of journal publishers that includes the American Institute of Physics, publisher of Physics Today. Under the system, which will take effect with grants funded beginning 1 October, DOE’s Office of Science and Technical Information (OSTI) will provide links to agency-funded articles that are archived on publishers’ websites. Those articles will become freely available beginning one year after the date of publication. Between 20 000 and 30 000 articles and manuscripts from agency-sponsored research are published each year, according to a DOE statement. The inaugural CHORUS member publishers already host more than 80% of that content, estimates Fred Dylla, AIP’s executive director, and a membership drive is underway for more.

OSTI will provide links to archives maintained by the research-performing institutions for papers published by CHORUS nonparticipants and by publishers who go out of business. An archive of full-text articles will also be maintained by DOE, but links to articles there will be provided only as a last resort. NSF and other research-funding agencies are expected to announce their open access plans in the coming months. The largest funding agency, the National Institutes of Health, has been providing public access to its sponsored research through its PubMed Central archive since 2000.