Association of Research Libraries (ARL) official comments on National Institutes of Health (NIH) public access proposal

I am writing on behalf of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to express our strong support for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposal to provide freely available online access to NIH-funded manuscripts via PubMed Central, http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-064.html. There are many aspects of the NIH plan that ARL endorses and ARL applauds NIH's leadership in promoting this balanced initiative. There are six issues concerning the NIH plan that are the focus of ARL s comments, including how the proposal: reflects the way scientists conduct research and discovery; allows some libraries to provide additional resources to their users; creates an archival resource for biomedical literature funded by NIH; provides significant protections to commercial and not-for-profit publishers; follows congressional and administration policy; and expands and improves public access to biomedical information.