We now have the Twitter tag @ccess! This is fantastic. Thanks to Tyler Neylon for making this happen.
The progress on http://access.okfn.org and http://whoneedsaccess.org is fantastic. On the latter we are getting daily stories from the #scholarlypoor – people who want to read the scholarly literature and cannot. Read them and see how powerful their stories are – people who leave their job feel a great sense of loss and deprivation, and spending thousands of dollars is not an option.
I’m going to Rhodes House Oxford for : Scientific Evolution, Open Science and the future of publishing www.evolutionofscience.org/ This is a great event and I’ve been asked to ask a question. I’ve sent this in – not sure whether the panellists have seen it so I shan’t put it here but it’s about the #scholarlypoor. The tragedy is that the world is deprived of scholarship and we have to put that right. The first step is to recognise it and cement it in our articles of policy – my approach is /pmr/2011/09/30/access-to-scientific-publications-should-be-a-fundamental-right/ .
Then we have to work out how to make it happen. This is where the #scholarlypoor have the power. We – I count myself as part of the #scholarlypoor as the publishers have forbidden me to do the research I want – should mobilise and make our voice heard. If the world trembles when 7000 academics (including me) Boycott Elsevier then how much more the power of the world, feeling the deprivation.
And, yes, unlike the woolliness of most academics this is a hardball fight. The #scholarlypoor have no hIndexes to worry about and their demand is simple (I have been on enough demonstrations to know this by heart!)
- What do we want?
- Access.
- When do we want it?
- Now
If you can remember this simple chant, join us.