Scott Shackford on Publish or Perish

Proponents of the "open access" movement want the Obama Administration to require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research. But as Scott Shackford writes, government funding does not cover the costs of peer review, editing and publication, which are borne by private publishers and then recouped through subscriptions to their journals. Research libraries, academic publishers, researchers and IP experts all propose solutions for making quality research available. Should the government be imposing a one-size-fits-all model for the steadily increasing share of research conducted for, by, or at the direction of the federal government?