Last month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued new guidance mandating that taxpayer-funded research be immediately available for the public to access free of charge.
Federal agencies must comply with this new guidance by 2025 – a major victory for proponents of “open access,” a movement to make academic research more accessible for everyone. Previously, journals have been allowed to keep academic research behind paywalls for up to a year.
“In a way, we were kind of double-paying for research that was funded by taxpayer dollars,” said Khaleedah Thomas, a copyright and scholarly communications librarian for Colorado State University Libraries.
Proponents of open access say it allows more collaboration between academics and a great dissemination of information that could be vital during crises.
Thomas spoke to SOURCE about why the new guidance matters, what’s next and how the COVID-19 pandemic helped the open access movement.
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