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Eduardo R. Saguier (Saguiere) (host1.200.61.145.ifxnw.com.ar - 200.61.145.1)
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Votos: 0 (Votar!) | | Enviado domingo, 18 de agosto, 2002 - 02:26 pm: | 
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| The Carter Center
Public Information Office
One Copenhill
453 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, GA 30307
Dear Jimmy Carter:
I have the honor to address you in order to install in the public debate one of the most glaring civil and human rights violations experienced in the electronic age by researchers and scholars in less developed countries: the boycott of the rights to practice scientific research, to communicate and be scholarly informed. The strong need to break the isolation and censorship, and consequently the demand to overcome the violation of academic freedoms, to which research institutions in less developed countries are subjected --with respect to paid licenses of full-text and online journals-- is becoming every day more demanding, to such a degree that an appeal for an international solidarity has become imperative.
A text inspired in Richard Sclove ideas is herein submitted with the goal of promoting debate as to what extent the practice of scientific research should or should not be regarded as a fundamental civil and human right, to what degree electronic information for academic study should be subject to democratic deliberation rather than to market forces and business profits, and how the scientific institutions of less developed countries could reach the electronic connections and the paid electronic licenses to periodical journals published online. It is my hope that unlimited access to electronic information firmly combined with more democratic intellectual practices should be raised and endorsed as a legitimate demand in the struggle against commercial-academic censorships and new types of privatized and monopolized knowledge and on behalf of academic freedoms, extended democracy, and the principles of open communication and education and equal opportunities worldwide.
As one of thousands of isolated scholars in less developed countries, the obstacles and difficulties to reach and challenge international organizations, multinational electronic editors and corrupt governments are innumerable and overwhelming. Therefore, I got convinced that this is not merely an academic issue but essentially a political issue and that the only way to raise it successfully and at a global scale is to appeal to those who have become internationally acknowledged as hard defenders of human rights. Hence, I have realized that up to date, Nelson Mandela, Mary Robinson and you, are the only world statesmen to whom any scholar and research institution in less developed nations could trust the defense of these new kind of rights. As an historical corroboration, in countries of Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America --like Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Argentina, where more elementary human rights were traumatically violated-- you showed to the world how decisive and sacred have been your commitments.
I have sent the text that follows this message to hundreds of Associations, Academies, scientific institutions, and communication and education departments at European, Australian and Northamerican universities; and to associations, journals, newspapers and forums that belong to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Eastern Europe. The list of those associations, grouped by discipline, together with their electronic addresses, is also attached to this message. However, I feel that my capacity to summon an international collective will has reached its limits.
Yours truly,
Eduardo R. Saguier
Senior Researcher (CONICET, Argentina)
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/announce/show.cgi?ID=130901
August 5th, 2002
Dear Chairman:
I have the honor to address you in order to install one of the most glaring civil and human rights violations experienced in the electronic age by researchers and scholars in less developed countries: the boycott of the rights to practice scientific research, to communicate and be scholarly informed. The strong need to break the isolation and censorship, and consequently the demand to overcome the violation of academic freedoms, to which research institutions in less developed countries are subjected --with respect to paid subscriptions or licenses of full-text and online journals-- is becoming every day more demanding, to such a degree that an appeal for an international solidarity has become imperative.
The relevance of these online and full-text journals for the excellence of our research performance and for any country that wants to engage in science and research activities as a platform for an economic and cultural takeoff (such were the cases of Ireland and Finland) is obvious. However, we find ourselves in circumstances similar to those experienced by the most backward and oppressed European and Middle East countries during the Renaissance --when Gutenberg invented the printing press-- being condemned to continue using parchment, papyrus and clay tablets. Moreover, the amazing electronic incommunication or censorship to which we are subjected by corrupt governments has relatively increased in the recent times because the number of paid subscriptions to online Databases has enlarged while the number of free access scientific sites have dramatically decreased.
On the contrary, at the opposite extreme of this irrational and corrupt behavior, governments of less developed countries are desperately trying to break their financial incommunication with international banking. We believe that this contradictory behavior is hypocritical and a double discourse. These contradictory practice and this hypocrisy in discourses, that no crisis can justify, offend our scientific researchers, leads to a persistent brain drain, and makes it impossible for young scholars living in the First World to return to their countries of origin.
Moreover, the contradiction and the hypocrisy of less developed governments could partially be undone if superfluous expenses be punished, and if their budgets could be reassigned. Adversely, research institutions permanently suffer budget cuts and incur extra expenses, that should be reallocated. These state research institutions have sistematically boycotted the paid subscription to those online Databases, monopolized by multinational electronic editors, such as J-Store, Pro-Quest, Elsevier, Carfax, Sage, Kluwer, Blackwell, II Mulino, Swets Backsets Service, Frank Cass, Chadwyck-Healy, Bell Howell, Gale´s Ready Reference Shelf, Project Muse, CERN Library, Spring Harbour Laboratory Press, Allen Press, MALMAD, and Medline among many other Databases.
However, governments in these less developed countries persist in giving priority to the resolution of the financial gap with institutions of international banking, without any respect whatsoever to the scientific and cultural incommunication we are experiencing, condemning us to practice a marginal and obsolete science, unable to compete with the cutting edge research of First World countries. Finally, I appeal to your solidarity, urging you to debate within your Association any kind of ideas susceptible of supporting our struggle.
Yours truly,
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Eduardo R. Saguier (Saguiere)
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Votos: 0 (Votar!) | | Enviado martes, 20 de agosto, 2002 - 12:48 pm: |
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| Eduardo,
I have just read your open letter to Jimmy Carter. As a fighter in the same cause, I congratulate you for bringing this issue to the attention of the world's statesmen (and email discussion lists) that care most about human rights.
There are many initiatives around the world working to make scientific and scholarly journal articles available on the internet free of charge. One of the largest and most recent is the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), in which I had the privilege to participate. You can read more about it here, . The BOAI not only articulates the principles of open access to science and scholarship, but has $3 million from the Open Society Institute to give grants around the world (mostly in developing countries) to help realize this vision.
I wrote an article in the last issue of my newsletter (see the links below) showing that one form of free online scholarship has recently attracted very wide support and adoption. There are reasons to be optimistic that this struggle is succeeding and that scholars will regain control of scholarship and share it freely with all.
Best wishes,
Peter
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Peter Suber, Professor of Philosophy
Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, 47374
Email peters@earlham.edu
Web http://www.earlham.edu/~peters
Editor, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/
Editor, FOS News blog
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
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