U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder touts bill that would make research more available during KU visit / LJWorld.com

"If taxpayers help fund scholarly research, U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder said Wednesday, then it ought to be free and available for anyone to see. Photo by Richard Gwin Congressman Kevin Yoder talks with Kansas University Libraries Dean Lorraine Haricombe on Wednesday at KU’s Watson Library. During a talk at Kansas University’s Watson Library, Yoder, an Overland Park Republican, outlined a piece of legislation he’s supporting that would make that the case more often. The bill is called the Federal Research Public Access Act, and it would require that scholarly journal articles fueled by federal research funds be easily available for free online, within six months of their publication. 'Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay twice for research,' Yoder told listeners. By that, he said he meant universities shouldn’t have to pay thousands in state funds for access to research that already made use of federal tax dollars. Yoder said he became a supporter of open access to research after a meeting in Washington, D.C., with former KU provost David Shulenburger, who now works for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities there. Shulenburger helped create an open-access repository of research by KU faculty during his time as provost.  'I think it’s consistent with what KU’s mission has been all these years,' said Yoder, who has bachelor’s and law degrees from KU and served as student body president during his time there. He said KU was often mentioned along with Harvard University as a leader on the cause of open access.  Yoder spoke at KU as part of Open Access Week, an international event in which the KU Libraries are taking part. Lorraine Haricombe, KU’s dean of libraries, said KU had long advocated for open access to research. In 2009, the Faculty Senate made KU the first U.S. public university to adopt a policy of open access to published research by its faculty...  More than 30 KU faculty members, including Provost Jeff Vitter, have signed an online boycott petition against the major journal publisher Elsevier that alleges exorbitant subscription prices and other practices that discourage free access to research.  Yoder earlier this year was one of two original co-sponsors of the FRPAA bill, along with Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat.  It’s now up to 34 co-sponsors, though he said it would likely need at least 218 — a majority of the House of Representatives — to be successful. That’s unlikely to happen for the current Congress, he said, but he has hopes it may have a chance in the Congress that begins in January following this fall’s election.  A companion bill has also been created in the U.S. Senate.

Yoder said he thought the law, which has bipartisan support, would be an easy sell despite possible opposition from journal publishers wary of losing subscriptions..."