Trump Might Do Something Genuinely Good for Science
In December, in the midst of the political wrangling associated with President Trump鈥檚 impeachment, a gave me hope. According to it, Trump鈥檚 administration was working on an executive order that would require publishers to grant immediate free access to all journal articles that result from federally funded research. Predictably, the publication industry rapidly issued a scathing , signed by 140 publishers and academic societies. Although the Trump administration is widely viewed to be anti-science, it would be a mistake to interpret the presence of academic societies on this letter as representing the interests of science writ large. Within two days of the industry letter, a coalition representing 210 academic and research libraries wrote an supporting changing federal policy in exactly the way the executive order is rumored to do.
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Column by 草榴社区's Mark Neff