Call to Action: Support the California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (AB 609) (SPARC2)

"The California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Legislation (AB 609) was introduced into the California State Legislature in April of 2013 by Assembly Member Brian Nestande. If you are a California resident, visit our Legislative Action Center to write your state representatives in support of AB 609.   WHAT DOES THE LEGISLATION REQUIRE? The legislation would require researchers receiving a state-funded grant to submit an electronic copy of  articles resulting from that grant and accepted for publication to a publicly accessible online database. In the event that a California State funded researcher already has to submit their publication to an open access database to satisfy requirements from other funding sources or their university, the researcher can simply supply the link to that article to the funding agency and the California State Library. No later than six months after publication, the work would become openly accessible, free of charge, to the public through the California State Library. An online bibliography of all the research papers publically accessible under this policy would be produced, and each entry would be linked to the corresponding free online text. WHY THIS BILL?  The value of California’s investment in research is only maximized with wide use of the results of that research. People wishing to use these research results include healthcare providers, college students and professors, high school students taking STEM classes, biotech professionals, and interested citizens. Unfortunately, most research results are not available to all of these potential users because the vast majority of research funded with public dollars is available only with costly journal subscriptions, institutional licenses, or per article purchases. Single articles cost an individual approximately $30 each, and some journals cost schools up to $40,000 every year. The 10-campus University of California system spends nearly $40 million each year to buy access to academic journals, even though many of the articles are written, reviewed, and edited by UC professors as part of their research or academic scholarly duties.  California’s taxpayers fund this research and they have a right to expect that the results are available, and that they themselves have access to published results. To remain at the forefront of cutting-edge discoveries and innovations, we must make sure that this information is available to those who can translate this knowledge into public benefits."