Really? Nature put the #HeLa genome paper behind a paywall? Time for Nature Publishing Group to return ALL money obtained from genome papers

This is just fucking ridiculous.  As I have written about many many times - Nature Publishing Group many years ago promised to make papers reporting genome sequence data freely available.  They do not generally live up to this promise well.  See for example

• Hey Nature Publishing Group - When are you going to live up to your promises about "free" genome papers? #opengate #aaaaaarrgh
• Please help keep the pressure on Nature Publishing Group to restore free access to genome papers #opengate
• I am highly skeptical of the CHORUS system proposed by scientific publishers as an end run around PubMed Central
• Calling on Nature Publishing Group to return all money received for genome papers and article corrections
• A Solution to Nature Publishing Group's Inability to Keep Free Papers Free: Deposit them in Pubmed Central

Today I discovered that not only are some important genome papers not freely available but one for the ages - the paper on the HeLa genome - reported with much fanfare recently as a triumph of an agreement with the family of Henrietta Lacks - is only available if you pay.

Once again I call on Nature Publishing Group to publicly disclose all financial gains that have come from people paying for the these genome papers and for the money to be returned.

Draft of a Proposal for a UC #OpenAccess policy - comments wanted

Just got sent this email

Dear Colleagues, 

On behalf of the Academic Senate Library Committee (ASLC), I am asking for your comments on the attached proposed Open Access Publishing Policy for the University of California.. All faculty, including Academic Federation members are invited to post their comments on the Academic Senate web-forum site at http://academicsenate.ucdavis.edu/Forums/index.cfm?Forum_ID=67. Please go to this site to submit your feedback. 

Briefly, the issue is this: the faculty of the University of California, in conjunction with the University Committee on Libraries and Scholarly Communication (UCOLASC), is proposing a new OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING POLICY that will apply to the dissemination of all scholarly work. UCOLASC is seeking feedback from all campuses on this issue in order to inform a final version of the policy which will be presented to the Universitywide Academic Senate sometime this calendar year. 

The ASLC would appreciate your comments by Wednesday, May 9, 2012. Your ideas will then be shared with UCOLASC in time for its May 25th meeting. The web-forum will remain open substantially past May 9, and we will endeavor to include as many comments up to May 25 as possible. 

Sincerely, 

Brian H. Kolner 

Academic Senate Library Committee

The relate to a draft of a proposal for a new Open Access Publishing Policy being circulated at the University of California. The draft of the proposal can be found here.

UC Davis (and I presume other UCs) are now soliciting comments on the proposal. I would love to here / read comments from anyone. Personally, I think the policy is way to weak as it allows exceptions to be granted ...