Category Archives: Open Access

American Library Association Honors Aaron Swartz with Madison Award

Posted on March 15, 2013 by | 5 Comments

Today, the American Library Association posthumously awarded activist Aaron Swartz the 2013 James Madison Award for his dedication to promoting and protecting public access to research and government information. ALA President, Maureen Sullivan presented the award to Swartz’s family during the 15th Annual Freedom of Information Day in Washington, D.C.

Before his untimely death in January, Swartz was an outspoken advocate for public participation in government and unrestricted access to peer-reviewed scholarly articles. Swartz was a co-founder of Demand Progress, an advocacy group that organizes people to take action on civil liberties and government reform issues. Swartz was also a leader in the national campaign to prevent the passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that would have diminished critical online legal protections.

“Aaron loved libraries,” said Bob Swartz, Aaron’s father. “I remember how excited he was to get library privileges at Harvard and be able to use the Widener library there. I know he would have been humbled and honored to receive this award. We thank you. Aaron’s goal was to make knowledge freely available to everyone and we can all further his legacy by making this happen.”

“We are honored for Aaron to become the first person to win the James Madison Award posthumously,” said Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, Swartz’s partner. “Librarians have always understood the importance of open access better than anyone, and they were great friends to Aaron. Aaron fought to ensure that the corpus of human knowledge would be available to anyone who wanted to learn, not just those with the privilege of access to a major research university.

“He saw the revolutionary potential of the internet in this regard. I hope that Aaron’s death and this award can serve as a wake-up call to the U.S. Congress and the federal government: We must no longer allow corporate greed to be the bottleneck to people’s access to academic knowledge.”

Swartz was revered as a gifted computer programmer long before he became a public activist.  He helped to develop the web feed format RSS, the website framework web.py and the social news website Reddit. As a teenager, Swartz designed the code layer for the Creative Commons licenses. Continue reading →

About Jazzy Wright

Jazzy Wright is the Press Officer of the American Library Association's Washington Office. Email her at jwright@alawash.org.

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Government Information, Intellectual Freedom, OGR, Open Access

Tagged , , , , ,

Freedom of Information Day 2013

Posted on February 25, 2013 by | 2 Comments

James Madison AwardPlease join us on March 15 to celebrate the 15th annual Freedom of Information Day at the Newseum’s Knight Conference Center in Washington, D.C. The day will feature a key note discussion with First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams, subject of a new book, Nuanced Absolutism, by author and law professor Ronald L.K. Collins and a conversation on a forthcoming video documentary, “Whistleblowers”.

A highlight of the event will be the announcement of the ALA’s James Madison Award recipient, an award named in honor of President James Madison to honor individuals who have championed, protected and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know on the national level. As part of our presentation of the award, last year’s recipient Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) will speak on the importance of access to information.

The day’s events will begin at 8:30 a.m. and there is no charge to attend.  It would be helpful for any attendees to register in advance to ensure adequate seating.  To register, e-mail or telephone Ashlie Hampton of the First Amendment Center at ahampton@freedomforum.org or (202) 292-6288. When registering, please provide your name, title, affiliation and contact information for agenda updates and other news. A paid luncheon meal option will be offered at the time of registration.

This event is a celebration of James Madison’s March 16th birthday and is held in partnership with the First Amendment Center, OpenTheGovernment.org, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The conference is also part of the annual Sunshine Week initiative sponsored by the American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

About Jessica McGilvray

Jessica McGilvary is the Assistant Director of ALA Washington Office's Office of Government Relations (OGR).

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Events, Government Information, OGR, Open Access

Tagged , ,

We asked and the White House responded!

Posted on February 25, 2013 by | 2 Comments

We the people

On Friday afternoon, John Holdren, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, released a Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies. The memo, Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research (pdf), is the Obama Administrations response to last year’s We the People petition that asked for a requirement for scholars and researchers to provide “free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research”.

This memo comes at an opportune time, as two weeks ago the bicameral, bipartisan Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) was introduced in the house and senate. There are many similarities between Friday’s memo and FASTR; however it is important to understand that the open access fight is not over! While the memo became policy the day the White House released it, the next president could overturn the policy on his / her first day in office. We must continue to work with congress to make FASTR into law.

This memo demonstrates that the Obama administration has a good grasp on the needs of the public, going beyond what FASTR would mandate to include data as well as published research. The memo states that “to achieve the Administration’s commitment to increase access to federally funded, published research and digital scientific data, Federal agencies investing in research and development must have clear and coordinated policies for increasing such access”. Unlike with FASTR, these new polices must be completed within 6 months.

For a further comparison on FASTR and Friday’s OSTP memo, check out this insightful piece by Peter Suber of the Harvard Open Access Project and SPARC.

Please take a moment to reach out to your congressional representatives to ask for their support on FASTR – request that they become a cosponsor on the bill! The Legislative Action Center is ready and waiting on your visit!

About Jessica McGilvray

Jessica McGilvary is the Assistant Director of ALA Washington Office's Office of Government Relations (OGR).

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Government Information, Library Advocacy, OGR, Open Access

Tagged

Like a bad penny, CISPA has returned…

Posted on February 22, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Last week, Rep. Mike J. Rogers (R-MI) and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) introduced the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2013, H.R. 624 (CISPA) in the House. This is essentially the same bill (H.R. 3523) that the House passed in April of last year and that the President Obama threatened to veto . The President has again made his opinion known, this time via an executive order, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. In the absence of legislation in this area, the executive order provides policy for the federal government to increase its cybersecurity.

CISPA would make it possible for private companies to share information with the government while keeping info from the public, violating the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Page seven, lines 10-13 (pdf) of the bill clearly state that cyber threat information shared with the federal government “shall be exempt from disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code (Commonly known as the ‘Freedom of Information Act’”. The ironic thing is that much of the information that the companies might share is already protected under FOIA!

The American Library Association will again work with other civil liberty groups to oppose CISPA. Please stay tuned for more information as this movement progresses!

For more information, please visit the ALA’s website.

About Jessica McGilvray

Jessica McGilvary is the Assistant Director of ALA Washington Office's Office of Government Relations (OGR).

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Cybersecurity, Intellectual Freedom, OGR, Open Access

Tagged

FASTR is the new FRPAA

Posted on February 21, 2013 by | 3 Comments

On February 14, 2013 the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) was introduced in both the House and Senate – Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and cosponsor Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the Senate bill, S. 350  and Rep. Michael Doyle (D-PA) and cosponsors Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Kevin Yoder (R-KS) introduced  the House bill, H.R. 708.

While this bipartisan legislation has a new name, the language of the bill is almost identical to that of Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), introduced in the last congress.

If passed, the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) would:

  • Require federal departments and agencies with an annual extramural research budget of $100 million to develop a policy to ensure researchers submit an electronic copy of the final manuscript accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Ensure that the manuscript is preserved in a stable digital repository maintained by that agency or in another suitable repository that permits free public access, interoperability, and long-term preservation.
  • Require that each taxpayer-funded manuscript be made available to the public online and without cost, no later than six months after the article has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Require agencies to examine whether introducing open licensing options for research papers they make publicly available as a result of the public access policy would promote productive reuse and computational analysis of those research papers.

In essence, this legislation would advance and expand the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy implemented in 2008 which requires public access to taxpayer-funded research to an additional 11 agencies.

In his press release, Congressman Doyle stated that “This bill will give the American people greater access to the important scientific research results they’ve paid for”. To thank Congressman Doyle, the ALA signed on to a letter (pdf) expressing gratitude for his “leadership in introducing the Fair Access to Science and Technology Act, and for [his] long-standing commitment to the success of crucial public access policies”.

The ALA has long supported greater access to non-classified government information and these bills would make it possible for librarians and the public at large to view greater amounts of government research at no additional cost.  ALA is working with Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA), (for which ALA is a member) to advocate on behalf of legislation that calls for expanding public access to federally funded research.

Please take the time to thank those who have already signed on to support FASTR and use the ALA’s Legislative Action Center to ask your representatives to cosponsor the bills.

About Jessica McGilvray

Jessica McGilvary is the Assistant Director of ALA Washington Office's Office of Government Relations (OGR).

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Library Advocacy, OGR, Open Access

Tagged , , , , , , ,