Budapest Open Access Initiative
An old tradition and a new technology have
converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is
the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their
research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and
knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make
possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal
literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists,
scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. 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.
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