... In late April, the company officially announced its new WebShare program, which has opened the Britannica site for free access to web publishers and permits free links to full-text entries. Bloggers, webmasters, online journalists, and "anyone else who publishes regularly" on the internet can now get free subscriptions to Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. And, perhaps more importantly, sites can provide links for their readers to Britannica articles and web surfers who click on a link get the article in its entirety.
Anyone interested in participating in the WebShare initiative can apply for a free subscription ... Apparently the site was quickly swamped with requests for free subscriptions. Tom Panelas, director of corporate communications for the company, says they did their best to process the requests quickly and found that most of the people applying were qualified and received the subscriptions. The company has already granted thousands of free subscriptions. An FAQ on the site clarifies that this "does not include Web sites mainly dedicated to e-commerce or those whose postings are short and aphoristic by design." ...
The company is providing special tools, such as widgets and clusters of topical articles related to current events that are designed to make it easy for online publishers to find and use Britannica material on their sites. And the company promises additional features in the months ahead. ...
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
