For a lot of practitioners scholarly information is too costly to access. Academic publishers charge thousands of dollars for journal subscriptions. This whole thing is a burden on knowledge seekers. The proponents of open knowledge have raised the question of morality of the model. Why should people pay to access research findings of those are funded through tax-payers money? Shouldn’t it be open for all?

On May 20, a campaign has been launched in U.S by a group of activists who supports public access to scholarly information. The petition was filed toward Barack Obama administration with a title “require free access over the Internet to journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research.”

As a non-profit organization, Wikimedia wants to possess and engage people around the world to collect, develop and share educational resource under a free license or in the public domain, and to propagate it effectively and globally. Each month, million users of global readers view Wikimedia, and have the opportunity to evaluate and contribute to Wikimedia content.

Wikimedia believes that in open access and free licensing as fundamental forces to propagate knowledge, support education and accelerate discovery. Wikimedia Foundation is supporting this petition, already joining thousands of people and organizations revealing support for free access to taxpayer funded research articles. Wikimedia hopes that you will join, too—anyone over age 13 can sign (and you do not need to be a US citizen).

One request, please consider signing this petition to directive that all research funded by U.S. taxpayers be made freely available to the citizens of the Web.

Source: Wikimedia

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