Please forgive this out-of-subject mail, but it may be of interest to
many researchers.



>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 13,000 scientists from 127 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.
-------------------
To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr.  Archives: http://caml.inria.fr