Open Access Day!

SPARC, Students for FreeCulture and PLoS are organizing the first ever Open Access Day on October 14, 2008. This is also the 5th birthday of PLoS Biology, the oldest of seven PLoS journals.

For this occasion, the organizers have put together a nice website/blog where you can find all the information. You can watch videos (two so far, but there will be more). You can help spread the word:

You can get prizes. Or you can enter the blog contest:

Coming soon...

Prior to Open Access Day, bloggers will be invited to draft a personal post addressing the following key points:

* Why does Open Access matter to you?
* How did you first become aware of it?
* Why should scientific and medical research be an open-access resource for the world?
* What do you do to support Open Access, and what can others do?

We will ask the community to time these posts for release on Open Access Day so that the whole blogosphere gets the message that Open Access matters! A series of videos is also being prepared to address the same questions.

PLoS and (we hope) another prestigious publishing partner will then choose the winner and announce it on their respective sites. A free goodie bag including an iPod Nano, and other items (T-shirts, etc.) will be the prize for the most compelling post.

Watch this space...

But to win the blog contest, you first have to deal with Dorothea... ;-) Steve Lawson seems to have already conceded defeat to her. You should not!