portal: Libraries and the Academy

Joseph, Heather.
Public Access: Bringing It All Back Home
portal: Libraries and the Academy - Volume 7, Number 1, January 2007, pp. 1-5

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Heather Joseph - Public Access: Bringing It All Back Home - portal: Libraries and the Academy 7:1 portal: Libraries and the Academy 7.1 (2007) 1-5 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Public Access: Bringing It All Back Home Heather Joseph With the emergence of policies calling for rapid, unfettered access to the results of federally funded research, the notion of academic and research libraries providing "public access" to information has taken on an important new meaning. The traditional usage of the phrase referred to providing services to walk-in patrons. The new usage suggests the opportunity for anyone to have free, unrestricted, online access to final, peer-reviewed article manuscripts stemming from government-funded research. This is more than a simple change in definition. It reflects the larger transformation of information access in the time of the Internet. In addition, it is a tip-off that libraries are on the cusp of new opportunities and challenges in actively facilitating the research process. The alternate meaning of public access burst onto the scene in 2004 with the announcement of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy proposal entitled, "Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information." However, this was not just another routine government agency announcement. In a fundamental way, it spoke to the advancement of science in the age of the Internet. The NIH director, Elias Zerhouni, personally played a pivotal role in...