from the Straight-to-the-source dept.
Senior Associate John Gilmore calls our attention to an item on the movement to create an open public library of scientific papers that appeared on the New Scientist website.
A model archive, called "PubMed Central", was set up by Harold Varmus when he was director of the US National Institutes of Health. Major journals which already deposit their papers there include the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the British Medical Journal. Supporters of the idea urge other scientists to sign a petition calling for the library, and to boycott journals unwilling to participate in the scheme.
As of the end of March, more than 12,000 scientists from 120 countries have signed an open letter in support of the Public Library of Science initiative. As a result of this initiative, several scientific publishers have already decided to adopt the policy advocated in the open letter, and almost every publisher and scientific society is discussing it. You can find out more, and add your signature to the petition, at http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org.
