From: <laurenti at ccr.jussieu.fr> Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 17:01:23 +0100 Subject: unrestricted access to the published record of scientific research
Dear Colleague,
We write to ask for your support of an initiative to provide unrestricted access to the published record of scientific research. An open letter in support of this initiative has been signed by more than 4,500 scientists from 91 countries. We hope you will take a minute to read the letter and consider signing it.
The open letter, a list of the scientists who have already signed it, and some answers to frequently asked questions are posted at: http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org. This site also provides a way for colleagues to sign the open letter online.
You may also wish to read an editorial written by Richard J. Roberts, recently published in PNAS, which explains why he supports the initiative (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/041601398v1).
This is a grassroots initiative, and the breadth and depth of support it receives from the scientific community will determine its success. If you decide to support this effort, please consider spending an hour or two of your time in the next week talking to colleagues at your own and other institutions, explaining to them the reasons that you chose to support it, and encouraging them to join you in signing the letter. Your effort can really make a difference.
======== OPEN LETTER ========
We support the establishment of an online public library that would provide the full contents of the published record of research and scholarly discourse in medicine and the life sciences in a freely accessible, fully searchable, interlinked form. Establishment of this public library would vastly increase the accessibility and utility of the scientific literature, enhance scientific productivity, and catalyze integration of the disparate communities of knowledge and ideas in biomedical sciences.
We recognize that the publishers of our scientific journals have a legitimate right to a fair financial return for their role in scientific communication. We believe, however, that the permanent, archival record of scientific research and ideas should neither be owned nor controlled by publishers, but should belong to the public, and should be freely available through an international online public library.
To encourage the publishers of our journals to support this endeavor, we pledge that, beginning in September, 2001, we will publish in, edit or review for, and personally subscribe to, only those scholarly and scientific journals that have agreed to grant unrestricted free distribution rights to any and all original research reports that they have published, through PubMed Central and similar online public resources, within 6 months of their initial publication date.
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