NIH policy of voluntary online publishing has failed

Straight from the Public Knowledge "In The Know" mailing list:

The latest report from the National Institutes of
Health on the public access program shows, once again, that the
voluntary approach to having researchers post their papers online
isn't working. Between May 2, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2005, a grand
total of 1,636 peer-reviewed articles were posted to the PubMed
Central site. The posted articles are 3.8 percent of the total of
about 43,000 eligible articles. Nine of the 11 non-NIH members of
the agency's advisory group recommended that the policy be made
mandatory. NIH said in the report that it will continue to work
with researchers, journal publishers and others to improve public
access. The report is here:
http://publicaccess.nih.gov/Final_Report_20060201.pdf

What a damned shame; leaving invaluable knowledge locked in proprietary databases.

P.S. This is our 100th post on ShoutingLoudly. Rah.