Yes, it is worth saying that there are two types of Select Committees - those of the House of Lords and those of the House of Commons. For some obscure historical reason, the UK Government MUST issue a response to every Lords Select C'tee Report, but is not obliged to agree with its recommendations. In contrast, the Government is not even obliged to respond to a House of Commons Select Committee Report, let alone agree to anything it recommends. So the outcome of this House of Commons Report may well be an almighty silence from the UK Government - and indeed, that is what I expect will happen, as the issues raised are not high on the UK Government's agenda. But the Report will nonetheless make interesting reading, and will provide ammunition for anyone who cares to make use of selected sentences from it!
Charles Professor Charles Oppenheim Department of Information Science Loughborough University Loughborough Leics LE11 3TU 01509-223065 (fax) 01509-223053 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barry Mahon" <barry.ma...@iol.ie> To: <american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org> Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 2:52 PM Subject: Re: UK Select Committee Inquiry into Scientific Publication On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 13:30:08 +0100, Charles Oppenheim <c.oppenh...@lboro.ac.uk> wrote: > According to yesterday's "Observer" newspaper, > http://politics.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,9174,1258849,00.html > the committee will recommend that legislation be introduced to force > all UK publishers to use an OA route, but I have to say I found that > notion incredible. Me too Charles, perhaps from your experience you might enlighten the people on this list as to the significance (or otherwise) of such Committees and their reports? Bye, Barry Mahon