Rockefeller University Press Position on Public Access

The SPARC OA Forum is forwarding a letter from Mike Rossner at Rockefeller University Press outlining the position of the press on public access for all subscribers. The full text of the letter is as follows: “I am writing to clarify the position of The Rockefeller University Press (RUP) on various legislative efforts regarding public access to publications resulting from federally funded research.  RUP is a member of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Association of American University Presses (AAUP), who have both recently provided position statements on this issue.  However, RUP does not agree with those statements. RUP is a subscription-based publisher that publishes three biomedical research journals: The Journal of Cell Biology, The Journal of Experimental Medicine, and The Journal of General Physiology.  We have released our back content to the public since 2001 – long before any federal mandates existed – because we believe we have an obligation to give something back to the public that funds the research we publish. The AAP supported the now-defunct Research Works Act.  RUP strongly opposed that act. Both the AAP and AAUP have opposed the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), which has been re-introduced into both the House and Senate. Although numerous non-profit publishers signed the AAP letter, the RUP does not stand with those publishers.  RUP supports FRPAA in principle.  We know from the NIH public access policy that mandated 
access to the results of federally-funded research is necessary to get certain publishers to release this content to the public, and we support legislation to extend the NIH policy to other large federal funding agencies. The AAP and AAUP use a one-size-does-not-fit-all argument to oppose FRPAA because the drafted legislation calls for all large federal 
agencies to mandate public access six months after publication. Although it can be argued that a six-month embargo period may not be suitable for all disciplines covered by FRPAA, this is not grounds to oppose the legislation altogether.  It should be supported in principle and could be modified during Congressional review to provide 
the flexibility for each agency to choose its own embargo period. The continuing rhetoric from the AAP and AAUP about having ongoing ‘conversations’ about access to the results of publicly funded research is outdated.  There is legislation on the table that will 
help to make public access a reality now.”