Federal Open access is in action, can state open access be far?

Open Access Now 2013-03-15

February is an exciting month for scholarly communications community as two new policies that favor open access are introduced/announced, FASTR and the directives from White House OSTP. While federal government requires open access policies from federal agencies, a few states take action to push open access even further at the state level.

  •  California, Feb. 20, 2013

The State Assembly has introduced California Bill 609–California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act that could potentially increase access to state-funded research:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB609&search_keywords=

  •  Illinois, Feb. 15, 2013

A Senator has submitted an open access bill to the state Senate for consideration. Senate Bill 1900 can be found at:

>http://tinyurl.com/al6898t

  •  New York State, early 2012

A bill (S7046A – 2011) was introduced in the NY State Senate to establish open access to publicly funded research.

http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S7046A-2011

Contact your Senators and make a case for open access to state funded research in your state. Let the flower of open access flourish through all states this spring!