Rockefeller University Press director opposes RWAOptions

An open letter from Mike Rossner, Executive Director of Rockefeller University Press, to Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a co-sponsor of the Research Works Act. Excerpt: "I am contacting you as a publisher and as your constituent in the 14th Congressional District of New York to express my strong opposition to the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699), which you and Representative Issa introduced into the House on December 16, 2011. I want to state emphatically that I support the NIH Public Access Policy and think it should be expanded to other federal funding agencies. All publishers of biomedical research understand several truths: 1) that their content is generated in large part through federally funded research, 2) that the peer review process is carried out in large part by federally funded individuals, and 3) that a significant portion of their subscription revenue is obtained from government funded institutions....At The Rockefeller University Press, we have released the content of our three journals to the public six months after publication since January, 2001, and our subscription revenues have grown since then. All of the content in our journals is released to the public, regardless of funding source. We are not aware of any data indicating that subscription revenues of biomedical research journal publishers have been directly and negatively affected by the NIH mandate. Enacting a law that prohibits federal funding agencies from mandating public access to the results of the research they fund will deprive the public of important information that is rightly theirs. Although this Act has been supported by the Association of American Publishers (AAP), it is vital that members of Congress know that not all members of this Association agree with their position. The Rockefeller University Press is a member of the AAP, but we strongly oppose H.R. 3699."