Read the Open Letter

The Public Library of Science initiative began with the circulation of the following open letter, urging publishers to allow the research reports that have appeared in their journals to be distributed freely by independent, online public libraries of science.

Although our deadline of September 2001 has passed, and the focus of our efforts has shifted to publishing our own journals, you can continue to show your support for PLoS by joining 37740 of your colleagues from 249 countries in signing the following open letter to scientific publishers.

Open Letter

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.

To encourage the publishers of our journals to support this endeavor, we pledge that, beginning in September 2001, we will publish in, edit or review for, and personally subscribe to only those scholarly and scientific journals that have agreed to grant unrestricted free distribution rights to any and all original research reports that they have published, through PubMed Central and similar online public resources, within 6 months of their initial publication date.

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