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. This list will hopefully be dedicated to political action in defense of fair use and privacy, especially how it affects free software and digital freedom.
Improvements are to come soon.
Well, Whitfield Diffie, Eli Noam, Michael Rabin, Steven Levy, and Shari Steele will be on the panel too. By fighting many battles. Appended is news of one attack by our side. As of the end of March, more than twelve thousand scientists from 120 countries have joined you in signing the 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.