Open Access Journals: Public Library of Science
Organisation of scientists worldwide
Open letter signed by 30,000+ scientists from 180+ countries
“…committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature freely accessible to scientists and to the public around the world.”
Notes:
An organisation of scientists, again originating in the US, produced an open letter urging publishers to allow their journal content to be distributed freely by “independent, online public libraries of science”.
Approx 30,000 scientists world wide have signed the letter. (“The open letter has now been signed by 31042 of your colleagues from 182 countries.” Nov 2002)
In effective it is a petition.
It urges scientists and libraries to support the journals that have adopted the policies being advocated.
PubMed Central and HighWire are practical implementations of this concept.