APPENDIX 7
Memorandum from Professor Thomas Elbert,
University of Konstanz, Germany
As chairman of the Math and Natural Science
Section at Konstanz University (Sektionsleiter) I would like to
put on record my support of Open Access publishing as practiced
by BioMed Central, PLoS and others.
The rise in journal prices well above normal
inflation over many years has created a situation in which the
world's information-poor have become poorer. The world's information-rich
are also losing some of their wealth of information, not to the
world's information-poor but to the swelling profits of a monopoly
of publishers. Taxpayer funds in countries across the world are
being used to create further inequality in access to information
as authors publish in journals which cannot be afforded by an
increasing number of libraries.
This spiral of higher prices driven by greed
for higher profits leading to further reduction in access to information
cannot be allowed to continue. Many of my colleagues are concerned
about the present scholarly publishing system and we are looking
for ways to make the content we write more rather than less accessible
to people who seek the information we can offer. Most journals
published contain publicly-funded research results needed by people
across the world and therefore it is necessary to open up access
to all those who need high-quality information. Publicly funded
medical research in particular should be available without restrictions
to all.
January 2004
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