Budapest Open Access Archive Announced

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

14 February 2002.  Today, the creators of the Budapest Open Access
Initiative (BOAI) publicly announced its launch.  The Budapest Open Access
Initiative grew out of a meeting convened in Budapest by the Open Society
Institute (OSI) on December 1-2, 2001. The purpose of the meeting was to
accelerate an effort to make research articles in all academic fields
freely available on the Internet.

The initiative promotes world-wide electronic distribution of the
peer-reviewed journal literature and argues for completely free and
unrestricted access to it "by all scientists, scholars, teachers,
students, and other curious minds."  It continues, "Removing access
barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education,
share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich,
make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for
uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for
knowledge."

The BOAI reasons that this free (without payment) and unrestricted access,
termed "open access," is economically feasible and can be fostered through
two types of activity:  self-archiving (by authors of their own works on
the Web); and the launching of a new generation of electronic journals
that can be distributed for free, though the support of "foundations and
governments that fund research, the universities and laboratories that
employ researchers, endowments set up by discipline or institution,
friends of the cause of open access, profits from the sale of add-ons to
the basic texts, funds freed up by the demise or cancellation of journals
charging traditional subscription or access fees, or even contributions
from researchers themselves."

For the text of the initiative, see:
<http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml>

This site also contains URLS for signing the BOAI, for viewing
signatories, FAQ, and other information.

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