Dear colleague, please sign the petition. #openaccess

My research institution has an email list that gets used for lots of things.  Planning fun lunches, for instance.  Although someone had posted a link to the petition yesterday, there wasn’t any buzz or discussion.  Felt like a more full-fledged email was in order, to capture why this issue is so important to the postdocs and faculty on the list.  Here’s what I sent.  Please post your letters too?  Templates lower the barrier for other people composing similar messages, I think.

Dear colleague,

Following up on Karen’s email from yesterday about the petition to make publicly-funded research publicly-available…  

Have you signed it yet?

Have you forwarded it to your phd advisor, your sister, your facebook account, and your alum email list?

It is on a front page of Wired, detailed in today’s Guardian, has lots of twitter buzz, and is described in a no-holds-barred video.

If we get to 25k signatures in 30 days — and the goal is to blow that out of the water — then the petition goes to Obama’s desk for a response.  This is a HUGE opportunity to bring real research results to highschools, the Galapagos, our parents, startup companies, ourselves when we are between jobs…. not to mention better research opportunities through increased access to text mining etc.

Imagine if all of the research papers you wanted to read were available, full text, for searching by hand and with computers?  It is huge.  It is done right now by the NIH for preprints, with no demonstrable financial hardship to the research system… the plan is to extend this successful program to all federal agencies, including the NSF.

Anyone of any citizenship can sign.  This isn’t just a researcher’s issue… tell your friends and family.

Please sign, and spread the word.  More info.  Here’s how I asked my mom to sign, in case that helps :)

Heather