In about 15 hours from now there will be a thunderclap: https://www.thunderclap.it/en/projects/5675-open-access-button-launch
Joe and David – two medical students are ANGRY.
They’re angry that paywalls to the medical literature still exist. That they can’t read the medical literature that they want. That Jack Andraka, still at school, has to pay PUBLISHERS for “permission to read papers which can save lives.
Joe, David, Jack are the future.
And they are angry about the present. The mess that our generation has bequeathed to them. “Green” and “Gold”, mandates that non-one honours and believes in, repositories that are unfilled and no-one uses. Ten years of failure to implement the BOAI principles of access for everyone.
They want to sweep all this away.
So Joe and David have created a Thunderclap. They’ve created an Open Access Button which tells the world every time someone fails to get past a paywall.
Because (as I said):
“Closed access means people die”.
And they understand the modern world. They are using modern methods to tell people that they are unhappy. A LOT of people. They’ve asked us to support them by donating our Twitter followers to the cause. I’ve done this, with 2000 followers. So have people with many more followers (such as Creative Commons – Yeah!)
They want to get 800,000 – they might even beat that.
When things get unbearable we have to protest. I’ve protested against Nuclear weapons. I’ve been to Greenham Common. And Molesworth. I’ve often stood in Marble Arch protesting until UK removed cruise nuclear missiles. I was among 2 million who told Tony Blair not to invade Iraq. (He didn’t listen to me or anyone else).
I’ve demonstrated electronically against software patent in Brussels.
And the OA Thunderclap is telling the world that we’ve had enough. We’re sick of the prevarication.
Join Joe and David. Donate your Twitter followers. Support them to fight for a new world of Openness. Because what they have is the support of the citizens.
(Here’s some of their original post):
If someone hits a paywall in the forest, does it make a sound?
Every time you hit a paywall is an isolated moment of frustration, that is unlikely to shake the ivory tower of academic publishing. By putting these moments together using the Open Access Button, we will capture your individual moments of injustice and frustration and display them, on full view to the world. Only by making this problem impossible to ignore can we change the system.
This project was started by two students, good friends frustrated by the current system and driven to change the publishing system we will have to work with. The project was made possible by the invaluable support of developers, advocates and the open access community at large.
Our team has worked extremely hard in the past few months to develop a prototype which we’re finally ready to show to the world. At launch, the button will be able track and map every time a user hits a paywall, help them share their struggle and finally help them get access to the paper for free. Advocates can use the stories and data the button collects to push for change. Our data and code will all be available for others to use, improve on and do things we couldn’t have dreamed of.
Everyone is affected by this problem, patients, students, doctors and academics. We need your help to make this problem too obvious to ignore. Please help us. Share this thunderclap, and download the button November 18th
Find out more : http://bit.ly/1bEH7XT