Here in India, a similar reform (Right to Information) was introduced after much public debate and intellectual intervention.

Though Right to Information (RTI) does not talk about access to info regarding the spending and potential results of the spending in areas spanning science and technology, it saw close to 45 litigations in lower courts challenging the money spent by Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) on 4 research studies initiated by them a decade ago. The government stand on it was that it might be against national interest if areas of spending were bought out in public domain but the courts saw merit in the litigation and ordered the government to come out clean.

It can only be a win-win, everywhere!

Stuart, do you have data to back this claim? Are society journals really under stress more than commercial journals? From what I see with ACM the pressure comes from members, not from libraries.

The new US OATP Presidential Directive requiring the largest US funding agencies to mandate OA within 12 months of publication is a wonderful step forward for the entire planet.

Here are some crucial implementational details that will maximize the mandates’ effectiveness.

(1) Specify that the deposit of each article must be in an institutional repository (so the universities and research institutions can monitor and ensure compliance as well as adopt mandates of their own).

(2) Specify that the deposit must be done immediately upon publication.

(3) Urge (but do not require) authors to make the immediate-deposit immediately-OA.

(4) Urge (but do not require) authors to reserve the right to make their papers immediately-OA (and other re-use rights) in their contracts with their publishers (as in the Harvard-style mandates).

(5) Shorten, or, better, do not mention allowable OA embargoes at all (so as not to encourage publishers to adopt them).

(6) Implement the repositories’ automated “email eprint request” Button (for embargoed [non-OA] deposits).

(7) Designate repository deposit as the sole mechanism for submitting publications for performance review, research assessment, grant application, or grant renewal.

(8) Implement rich usage and citation metrics in the institutional repositories as incentive for compliance.

If this is all done universally, universal OA will soon be upon us — and a global transition to affordable, sustainable Fair-Gold OA (instead of today’s premature, double-paid Fool’s-Gold), plus as much CC-BY as users need and authors wish to provide — will not be far behind.