Universities and publishers of scholarly journals are at odds over a recently proposed Senate bill that would require institutions conducting research funded with federal tax dollars to publish their findings free of charge online, no more than six months after their publication elsewhere.

If passed, the open-access legislation could put an additional strain on campus IT infrastructures, as colleges and universities would be forced to post many of their research results on the web. But universities and education groups overwhelmingly support the bill, believing it will further the advancement of knowledge worldwide.

Publishers of scholarly journals, on the other hand, fear the bill will undermine their business.

Introduced into the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs by Senators John Cornyn, R-Tex., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the proposed Federal Public Research Access Act of 2006 (S.2695) stipulates that federal agencies investing $100 million or more annually in research will "develop public-access policies relating to research conducted by employees of that agency or from funds administered by that agency."

The bill also states that, because the federal government funds research with the expectation that it will introduce new ideas and discoveries, and because the internet makes it possible for this information to be disseminated to anyone who wishes to read it, researchers either employed or funded by the federal government should make electronic versions of their final findings available free of charge online within six months of publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

"Our bill simply says to all researchers who seek government funding that we want the results of your work to be seen by the largest possible audience. It will ensure that U.S. taxpayers do not have to pay twice for the same research--once to conduct it, and a second time to read it," said Cornyn in introducing the bill.

Opponents of the bill say scholarly journal subscriptions will suffer. They also claim the bill threatens to undermine the value of peer review by removing publishers' incentive and their ability to sustain investments in a range of scientific, technical, and medical publishing activities.

Brian D. Crawford, chairman of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the American Association of Publishers, sent a letter to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, protesting the proposed bill. Undersigned by more than 70 scholarly and publishing organizations, the letter claims the bill "would require the affected federal agencies to develop and maintain costly electronic repositories. To do so, agencies will need to divert millions of dollars away from federal research grants and towards the databases' costs."

"Full public access to scientific articles based on government funding has always been central to our mission," said Crawford, who also is a senior vice president of the American Chemical Society. "Competition demands it, and timely access to high-quality, peer-reviewed journals is fundamental to the scientific process."