In mid-July, Springer Science+Business Media announced its decision to offer all its journal articles dealing with the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, free of charge on its online platform Springerlink. A total of 318 articles will be available for printing or downloading until 31 December 2009. By taking this step, the company hopes to foster research into the causes, treatment and other aspects of the virus.
Springer's offer underlines once again just how important Open Access is for effective scientific research. It also implicitly acknowledges the fact that toll-based access can act as a barrier to knowledge.
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