AB 609: California Leads On Open Access To Publicly Funded Research

California has become the first state to mandate open access for the products of some taxpayer-funded research. On September 29 Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act, coauthored by Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R–Palm Desert) and Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D–Los Angeles). AB 609, as the bill is known, ensures that those who stand to benefit most from state-funded research, such as healthcare providers, students and professors, biotech professionals, and anyone with an interest in the field, will have access to current research results free of charge. Beginning January 1, 2015, the products of more than $200 million in annual research paid for by California taxpayers will be freely available—with some restrictions: AB 609 applies only to research funded by the Department of Public Health.

The legislation requires researchers whose work is supported by a fully or partially state-funded grant, and has been accepted for publication by a peer-reviewed journal, to submit an electronic version of this resulting article to a publicly accessible database. The database itself is not specified; suggested options include the University of California’s (UC) eScholarship Repository at the California Digital Library (CDL), PubMed Central, or the California Digital Open Source Library (CDOSL). The article would then be made publicly accessible through the California State Library no later than 12 months from its publication date. (If work has previously been submitted to a repository to satisfy OA requirements from another institution or funding agency, the researcher only needs to supply a link to that article to the funding agency and the California State Library.)
AB 609 does not call for mandatory open licensing...