Friends: Prof. Fytton Rowlands writes: "... ... mandatory deposition in institutional repositories, each one operated by an independent university, but all networked together by means of the OAI-PMH, might be more reassuring to Americans." But despite the prolific and persuasive writings on this subject by Peter Suber, Stevan Harnad, Leslie Chan and others, there are not many iopen access institutional archives either in North America or in Europe (including the UK). And we are always told that scientists go be reason, logic and evidence! When it comes to publishing, disseminating information, etc. most scientists and scientific institutions are anything but unscientific. How are we going to convince them of the great value of open access institutional archiving? Some of us in India are trying really hard to convince our science managers (mostly in the government), vice chancellors, directors of research labs, professors and scientists who publish frequently, doctoral students and librarians of the great advantages of setting p institutional archives in India. The progress is at snail's pace! I sometimes wonder if we are holding a much larger number of conferences and workshops on open access than setting up working institutional archives. The situation is somewhat similar to poverty reduction. here are a number of conferences on the subject, but very little action on the ground. It might help if we enforce a code of conduct: Anyone wanting to organise a conference on open access should do so only after he/she sets up at least five institutional rchives and populates them with at least 50% ofthe institution's published papers! Arun Friends: Prof. Fytton Rowlands writes: "... ... mandatory deposition in institutional repositories, each one operated by an independent university, but all networked together by means of the OAI-PMH, might be more reassuring to Americans." But despite the prolific and persuasive writings on this subject by Peter Suber, Stevan Harnad, Leslie Chan and others, there are not many iopen access institutional archives either in North America or in Europe (including the UK). And we are always told that scientists go be reason, logic and evidence! When it comes to publishing, disseminating information, etc. most scientists and scientific institutions are anything but unscientific. How are we going to convince them of the great value of open access institutional archiving? Some of us in India are trying really hard to convince our science managers (mostly in the government), vice chancellors, directors of research labs, professors and scientists who publish frequently, doctoral students and librarians of the great advantages of setting p institutional archives in India. The progress is at snail's pace! I sometimes wonder if we are holding a much larger number of conferences and workshops on open access than setting up working institutional archives. The situation is somewhat similar to poverty reduction. here are a number of conferences on the subject, but very little action on the ground. It might help if we enforce a code of conduct: Anyone wanting to organise a conference on open access should do so only after he/she sets up at least five institutional rchives and populates them with at least 50% ofthe institution's published papers! Arun