Open Access Button – that's 'OA Button', not 'Blue Button'

Check out this hot new idea, less than 30 days old from inception to action –  a working prototype of the Open Access Button!

Imagine a browser-based tool which allowed you to track every time someone was denied access to a paper?  Imagine if that tool gave you basic information those denying you access, there gathering data that creates a realtime, worldwide, interactive picture of the  problem.  Finally, imagine if the tool actually helped the person gain access to the paper they’d been denied access to in the first place.

The idea just makes so much sense. Running into a publisher’s 'paywall' when looking for a recent journal article and/or key findings is a major frustration that many researchers tend to encounter. Students and health advocates David Carroll and Joe McArthur decided to take these dead ends and turn them into something useful.

According to an article in MyScienceWork by Abby Tabor, the British Medical Journal hosted the BMJ Hack Day on July 6 and 7 in London.  “It exceeded our wildest expectations,” David Carroll says.  He said that in less than 30 hours, some of the attendees built the Open Access Button prototype.  People are still sending in ideas on how to further improve the prototype. Twitter followers have asked if they can help with the development of the OA Button – follow the Open Access Button on Twitter.

If you want to help create change to move towards a more open world visit the Open Access Button web site and/or email  [email protected]    You might also want to visit the Open Access Button blogging site at https://oabutton.wordpress.com

Again, consider adding the prototype of the Open Access Button to your Bookmark bar and begin to test its potential capabilities. Development continues and they hope to officially launch it during Open Access Week 2013.