Forum devoted to the freeing of online access to the peer-reviewed research literature. Continuous since 1998.

A selection of papers on the future of electronic publication in the field of academic communication, its impact and consequences.

All of Germany's principal scientific and scholarly institutions, including the Max-Planck Society, as well as a growing number of their counterparts from other countries (such as France's CNRS) have signed their commitment to open access to scientific and scholarly research.

Aims to accelerate progress in the international effort to make research articles in all academic fields freely available on the Internet.

A resource for faculty and librarian action to reclaim scholarly communication. Main issues concern subscription prices for scholarly journals and help for journals willing to find publishing options better suited to their academic missions.

Considerations on how to build a knowledge network for research communication and on its potential impact, by P. Ginsparg, one of the founders of ArXiv.

A statement issued in Havana on April 27, 2001, by the participants in the Second Regional Coordination Meeting of the Virtual Health Library and the Fifth Regional Congress on Health Sciences Information. One of the strongest public statements in support of open access archives philosophy.

An initiative aiming to construct a digital medium 'as a unified response to our health situation, facilitating wide access to information for the permanent improvement of health of the people'.

UNESCO is examining the possibilities of formulating an international strategy for creating and disseminating electronic theses and dissertations.

Dedicated to the freeing of the refereed research literature online through author/institution self-archiving. Provides free (GNU) software for self-archiving.

Introducing the Street Performer Protocol, an electronic-commerce mechanism to facilitate the private financing of public works. Using this protocol, people would place donations in escrow, to be released to an author in the event that the promised work be put in the public domain.

How and why to free the refereed research literature online through author/institution self-archiving, now - a manifesto by Stevan Harnad.

(FOS) News and discussion on the migration of print scholarship to the internet and efforts to make it available to readers free of charge. Newsletter, forum, FAQ and a comprehensive directory on electronic archives.

Examines radical alternatives for replacing mass media with network media, abolishing intellectual property, and changing social institutions that create a demand for surveillance. Free full text in html and pdf.

A group challenging the power of established scientific journals says legislation will be introduced to make the results of all federally financed research available to the public.

Online forum hosted by Nature Online concerning the impact of the web on the future of publishing and the dissemination of scientific information.

Article by Steve Lawrence appeared in Nature (2001) analyzing the citation rate of online and off line articles. Articles freely available online are more highly cited, free online availability substantially increases a paper's impact.

Comprehensive guide to the terminology, acronyms, initiatives, standards, technologies, and players in the free online scholarship initiative.

A non-profit organization of scientists committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature freely accessible to scientists and to the public around the world. Promotion of free access online journals and eprints archives.

(RoMEO) A project funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee to investigate the rights issues surrounding the self-archiving of research in the UK academic community under the Open Archive Initiative's protocol for metadata harvesting (OAI). Legal issues, surveys, links to related discussions.

New electronic and printed resources about scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Issues on copyright, academic impact, economical aspects.

An internet discussion about scientific and scholarly journals and their future.

An overview of current issues in scientific communication, exploring why scholars are losing control of a system that should be theirs and that is more and more controlled by publishers, chiefly through their pricing and copyright policies.

Answers to frequently asked questions about self archiving including what and how. Has a "I worry about..." set of questions too with advice and answers to issues.

How to free access to scientific literature: papers by one of the leaders of the open archives initiative.