Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Jimmy Wales on OA

Laura Smith, Wiki man joins EC OA campaign, Information World Review, March 5, 2007.  Excerpt:

The petition has been signed by more than 20,000 academics, librarians and individuals around the world, including Nobel laureates.

It calls on the EC to formally endorse the recommendations outlined in a study it commissioned last year, which concluded that the EU should ensure the widest possible readership for scholarly articles.

Wales told IWR he had signed the petition because it was “simple and obvious” that the public should have access to research they had funded. “Public money should result in public benefit,” he said.

“If you can have research paid for by the public and then get them to pay again to see it, that is a profitable approach. But it contradicts the basic principles of an enlightened approach to scientific knowledge....

He admitted that wider dissemination of scientific research would help make Wikipedia more relevant. “The more people who have access to the latest research, the easier it will be for our volunteers to keep our articles on science up to date,” he said....

PS:  For more on how OA to peer-reviewed science can help Wikipedia, see John Willinsky's article in the current issue of First Monday.