NIH Open Access Law
Effective April 7, 2008, a new law requires public access to research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Researchers are required to deposit electronic copies of their peer-reviewed manuscripts in PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's online archive. Fulltext of the articles will become publicly available and searchable in PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication in a journal. Official information on the new policy is available at NIH Public Access.
Specific instructions for depositing articles in PubMed Central to comply with the law are available in NIH Manuscript Submission Tutorials. You may be able to avoid this process if the journal automatically deposits submissions to PubMed Center; see the list of journals that do so.
Before signing any copyright agreements for your article, be sure that the publisher permits compliance with the new NIH public access policy. Specific journal's and publisher's policies on rights retention are available from SHERPA/Romeo. If there is a question about your rights, add the following language suggested by NIH to the publication agreement:
Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final
manuscript to the NIH upon acceptance for Journal publication, for public
archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than 12 months after
publication by Journal.
If you have further questions, contact your department's liaison at Lane Medical Library.
Posted on March 27, 2008 07:18 AM
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