On October 28, participants at the Russian National Library conference, Information as Public Domain: Access Through Libraries (St. Petersburg, October 27-29, 2994), issued the St. Petersburg Declaration. Excerpt: '[E]nabling access to public domain information produced by public authorities should become fundamental to the national information policies of all nations striving for democracy and freedom of human development. Public authorities, as well as libraries, archives and various information services providers should assume a primary responsibility for the expansion of openness and management of information as public domain. The mainstream principle of information management should be as follows: information produced by public authorities should be deemed publicly available, and any exceptions to this rule officially banning the said access should be justified, minimized and supported by the power of law. The national information policy and its legislative and regulatory support should be based on the presumption of openness of government information.' (Thanks to Zapopan Martín Muela Meza.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/13/2004 08:40:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
