Friends: Here is a letter from Dr Alma Swan, who came to deliver the keynote address at the special session on open access at this year's Science Congress, held at Hyderabad. Please request your scientist friends to write to the European Union's Directorate General of Research at rtd-scientific-publication@cec.eu.int Let them tell how important it is to have open access to all scientific research papers. Inaction may be taken to mean that OA is not really an important issue for scientists! Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]
Dear friends,
I apologise for the round-robin message but time is of the essence and I need to get this out to a number of people quickly.
Responses are currently being collected to the European Union's study on scientific publishing (http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-stu dy_en.pdf). The report is long, but the recommendations are right at the beginning and include some excellent ones for Open Access. A good summary of the report and its findings is found in Robin Peek's article for InformationToday at: http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb060410-1.shtml
I have been told that there is disappointment at the EU that the research community has not responded more enthusiastically. The EU people see their role as serving the research community and feel - rightly - that the future of publishing should be an important issue for that community. The lack of response belies that, unfortunately.
The deadline for responses has been extended until June 15th in order to give the research community more time to respond. If we don't respond, then the EU cannot be blamed for assuming OA is not an important issue to academia. This is the chance to show that it is, and the chance won't come again. So, if you can spare a few moments, please would you write a line or two in support of Open Access for research results, declaring your position and interest and saying why it would be beneficial for the EU to take a policy decision on Open Access to scientific research results. It doesn't matter if you live and work outside the EU: the arguments for OA apply the world over and you can encourage the EU to set an example in this respect.
Your message should be e-mailed to DG Research at: rtd-scientific-publication@cec.eu.int
Responses are probably measured as much by numbers as by the quality of the content - like parliamentary representatives counting letters for and against an issue to give them an idea of strength of public feeling! Just a couple of lines from you would therefore make a difference: there is no need to spend a lot of time on it if you are busy. If you can represent your group, department, school or even institution then that would add even more weight.
Thanks in advance if you can contribute.
With warm best wishes,
Alma __________________________ Alma P Swan, BSc, PhD, MBA Director Key Perspectives Ltd 2 Denver Place Elm Grove Road Topsham Devon, UK EX3 0EP Tel: +44 (0)1392 879702 www.keyperspectives.co.uk Consultants to the scholarly information industry