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More details from petition creator

Currently easy access to published academic material that is tax payer funded through research councils, is restricted to university staff and students. Even this varies with the individual budget of an institution or department.

Even when scientists publish to open journals they often have to pay a charge which is still met by the tax payer.

Gifted children in secondary schools are currently prevented from beginning self study of modern science as no secondary modern school has library access to academic literature. The price of a single view of an article is prohibitively expensive for early self study.

Additionally a large and untapped resource of retired scientists and engineers exists in our country. There is no good reason that they cannot contribute to our further understanding in their free time, if only they had access to the current understanding.

A good solution is to require a public holding of pre-print works before they are held in the publishable form restricted by a specific journal's access. This public library of literature should be made freely available to all from a central location.

Current signatories

Matt Oates, the Petition Creator, joined by:

• Robert Harry Nicodemus Williams
• Nat Queen
• Stephen G. Oates
• Thomas Davies
• Adam Bell
• Thomas M W Burton
• Katharine Perry
• laura anderson
• Bob Clough
• Alexandra Tyers
• Adam Sardar
• Michael Sheldon
• Matthew Russell
• Simon Garrett
• richard craig
• Stephen Reid
• Daniel Stevens
• Michael Clarke
• David Kelly
• Amy Bowers
• Harriet Mills
• Aaron Robson
• Dan Ros
• Stephen Paulger
• Al Large
• Ruth Lomax
• Andrea S Quigley
• David Robertson
• scott gilbert
• Gordon James