Discussing the AAP PR campaign on campuses

New PR Campaign Against Open/Public Access Initiatives, an open letter from Karla Hahn and Prue Adler to the Directors of all ARL libraries, January 31, 2007.  Hahn is the Director of Scholarly Communication and Adler is the Associate Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).  Excerpt:

In the last few days, amid growing criticism, broad attention has been directed to reports of a new public relations campaign sponsored by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) against public access initiatives concerning access to federally funded research and open access generally. Internal publisher documents leaked to reporters show that hundreds of thousands of dollars will be spent by publishers to "develop simple messages (e.g., public access equals government censorship)" that are aimed at key decision makers....

This memo provides talking points to assist you and your staff in working with members of your campus community with regards to the recently disclosed publishers public relations campaign against open/public access initiatives and legislation concerning access to federally funded research....

Update. The ARL has released a slightly revised version of this text under the title, Issue Brief: AAP PR Campaign against Open Access and Public Access to Federally Funded Research. The new version is not cast as a letter to library directors.