A community-driven petition in the US calling for the Obama administration to open up the results of taxpayer-funded scientific research by making journal articles freely available online is seen to have opened remarkably strong. The petition, which calls for public access to all federally funded research, was posted to the White House 'We the People' website just two-and-a-half days ago, with the aim of securing 25,000 signatures within 30 days.
As of May 23, 2012, over 12,500 people have signed the petition - at the rate of about 200 new signatures each hour. Researchers, patients groups, universities, libraries, students, businesses and families have all thrown their support behind the idea.
A broad range of open access supporters, including SPARC, are working to spread the word far and wide using e-mail, tweets, Facebook shares, blog postings and online videos.
