As of the end of March, more than fourteen thousand scientists from
130 countries have joined in signing the open letter in support of
the Public Library of Science initiative. As a result of this initia-
tive, several scientific publishers have already decided to adopt the
policy advocated in the open letter, and almost every publisher and
scientific society is discussing it. Yet, most life scientists are
still unaware of this initiative, and many of those who do know of
its existence have a distorted view of the proposal and its purpose.

The breadth and depth of support for this initiative from the scien-
tific community will determine its success. We believe that with your
help in informing your colleagues about this effort, and encouraging
them to support it, the open letter can be published in May with the
signatures of 50,000 scientists.

To achieve this goal, we each need to reach out to at least ten of
our colleagues. We would therefore like to ask you to consider two
steps:

1. Send an email message to all the scientific colleagues in your ad-
dress book (using the text attached at the bottom of this message, or
a modified version of it, or use your own language).

2. Spend an hour or two of your time in the next week talking to col-
leagues at your own and other institutions, explaining to them the
reasons that you chose to support the initiative, and encouraging
them to join you in signing the letter. (Let them know that they can
sign the letter online at: ).

Please also make a special effort to talk directly with the editors
and publishers of journals that are important to you, informing them
of your support of this initiative, and encouraging them to adopt the
policy that the letter advocates. We would greatly appreciate hearing
about any such efforts you are able to make.

Your time and effort can make the crucial difference in the success
of this initiative.

Sincerely,

Michael Ashburner, University of Cambridge
Patrick O. Brown, Stanford University
Mary Case, Association of Research Libraries
Michael B. Eisen, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and UC Berkeley
Lee Hartwell, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Marc Kirschner, Harvard University
Chaitan Khosla, Stanford University
Roel Nusse, Stanford University
Richard J. Roberts, New England Biolabs
Matthew Scott, Stanford University
Harold Varmus, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Barbara Wold, Caltech

========= Model email message to send to colleagues =========

Dear Colleague,

We write to ask for your support of an initiative to provide unre-
stricted access to the published record of scientific research. An
open letter in support of this initiative has been signed by more
than 14,000 scientists from 130 countries. We hope you will take a
minute to read the letter and consider signing it.

The open letter, a list of the scientists who have already signed it,
and some answers to frequently asked questions are posted at:
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org

This site also provides a way for colleagues to sign the open letter
online.

You may also wish to read an editorial written by Richard J. Roberts,
recently published in PNAS, which explains why he supports the ini-
tiative:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/041601398v1

This is a grassroots initiative, and the breadth and depth of support
it receives from the scientific community will determine its success.
If you decide to support this effort, please consider spending an
hour or two of your time in the next week talking to colleagues at
your own and other institutions, explaining to them the reasons that
you chose to support it, and encouraging them to join you in signing
the letter. Your effort can really make a difference.

======== 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 ac-
cessible, fully searchable, interlinked form. Establishment of this
public library would vastly increase the accessibility and utility of
the scientific literature, enhance scientific productivity, and cata-
lyze 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 scien-
tific communication. We believe, however, that the permanent, archi-
val 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 li-
brary.

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.

--
Jie Li
University of South Alabama
mailto:[email protected]