Break an embargo? Lose access, says Hopkins

One of the issues that comes up fairly often on Embargo Watch is why embargo breakers aren’t sanctioned more frequently. Press officers seem to bend over backward to give news outlets — particularly big ones — the benefit of the doubt.

Well, apparently Johns Hopkins plans to give its policies some teeth. An email sent to its press list yesterday:

“Dear press officer who won’t promote unembargoed research papers:” “[Y]ou’re disappointing me”

Angela Hopp

Some press officers are making Angela Hopp — and please forgive me for this one, Angela — hopping mad.

In “An open letter to press officers who won’t promote unembargoed research papers,” Hopp, who serves as the press contact for three journals published by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), explains that at those journals:

All accepted papers are published online immediately, putting them in the public sphere and making them ineligible for embargo.

(I’ll pause there for there a moment and make sure that the press officers who think they can embargo material that’s already freely available online read the part about such studies being “ineligible for embargo.”)

There’s plenty of material in ASBMB’s journals that press officers find of enough interest to press release. But when Hopp contacts some of them, she gets this response: