Subject: Fw: Budapest Open Access Initiative From: Al Bregman <al.bregman(at)MCGILL.CA> Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 17:44:54 -0500I am forwarding this announcement, which came to me today, to the list. It may be of interest to many of you. You can follow the links to find out more about it, if you want to. Al ------------------------------------------------- Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor Dept of Psychology, McGill University 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1 Office: Phone: +1 (514) 398-6103 Fax: +1 (514) 398-4896 Home phone & Fax: +1 (514) 484-2592 Email: al.bregman(at)mcgill.ca ------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "S.Harnad" <harnad(at)coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk> To: <bregman(at)hebb.psych.mcgill.ca> Sent: 16-Feb-02 7:56 AM Subject: Budapest Open Access Initiative > > This message is addressed to scholars and scientists and it concerns the > Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) http://www.soros.org/openaccess > launched on 14 February by George Soros's Open Society Institute. > > To be useful, research must be used. To be used (read, cited, applied, > extended) it must be accessible. There are currently 20,000 > peer-reviewed journals of scientific and scholarly research worldwide, > publishing over 4 million articles per year, every single one of them > given away for free by its researcher-authors and their > research-institutions, with the sole goal of maximizing their uptake > and usage by further researchers, and hence their impact on worldwide > research, to the benefit of learning and of humanity. > > Yet access to those 4 million annual research articles can only be had > for a fee. Hence they are accessible only to the lucky researchers at > that minority of the world's research institutions that can pay for > them. And even the wealthiest of these institutions can only afford a > small and shrinking proportion of those annual 20,000 journals. The > result is exactly as if all those 4 million articles had been written > for royalties or fees, just the way most of the normal literature is > written, rather than having been given away for free by their authors > and their institutions for the benefit of research and humanity. > > As a consequence, other researchers' access to all this work, and hence > its potential impact on and benefit to research progress, is being > minimized by access tolls that most research institutions and > individuals worldwide cannot afford to pay. > > Those access tolls were necessary, and hence justified, in the > Gutenberg era of print-on-paper, with its huge real costs, and no > alternatives. But they are no longer necessary or justified, and are > instead in direct conflict with what is best for research, researchers, > and society, in today's PostGutenberg era of on-line-eprints, when > virtually all of those Gutenberg costs have vanished, and those > remaining costs can be covered in a way that allows open access. > > The Budapest Open Access Initiative is dedicated to freeing online > access to this all-important but anomalous (because give-away) > literature, now that open access has at long last become possible, by > > (I) providing universities with the means of freeing online access > to their own annual peer-reviewed research output (as published in > the 20,000 established journals) through institutional > self-archiving, > > as well as by > > (II) providing support for new alternative journals that offer open > online access to their full text contents directly (and for > established journals that are committed to making the transition to > offering open full-text access online). > > It is entirely fitting that it should be George Soros's Open Society > Institute that launches this initiative to open access to the world's > refereed research literature at last. Open access is now accessible, > indeed already overdue, at a mounting cost in lost benefits to research > and to society while we delay implementing it. What better way to open > society than to open access to the fruits of its science and > scholarship, already freely donated by its creators, but until now not > freely accessible to all of its potential users? Fitting too is the > fact that this initiative should originate from a part of the world > that has known all too long and all too well the privations of a closed > society and access denial. > > Please have a look at the BOAI at http://www.soros.org/openaccess > and, if you or your organization are implementing, or planning to > implement either Strategy I or Strategy II, I hope you will sign > the BOAI, either as an individual or an organization. > > Below, I append links to some of the press coverage of the BOAI so far. > > Sincerely, > > Stevan Harnad > > Declan Butler, Soros Offers Access to Science Papers (for Nature) > http://makeashorterlink.com/?U21535A6 > > Ivan Noble, Boost for Research Paper Access (for BBC) > http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1818000/1818652. stm > > Michael Smith, Soros Backs Academic Rebels (for UPI) > http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=12022002-031227-9710r > > [Alexander Grimwade, Open Societies Need Open Access (The Scientist) > http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2002/feb/comm_020218.html ] > > [Denis Delbecq, L'abordage des revvues scientifiques (Liberation, > Paris) > http://www.liberation.com/quotidien/semaine/020214-050019088SCIE. html ] > > [http://slashdot.org/] > >