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2 McGill J.L. & Health 1 (2008)

handle is hein.journals/mcghealp2 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITOR'S NOTE - OPEN ACCESS TO LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP Josh Wilner* Open access could be the next step in a tradition that includes the printing press and penny post, public libraries and public schools. It is a tradition bent on increasing the democratic circulation of knowledge ... What began four years ago as an ambitious, student-initiated pilot project called the McGill Health Law Publication is today reborn as a full-fledged academic journal. It is with great pleasure that I present on behalf of our team of volunteer student editors the inaugural issue of the McGill Journal of Law and Health (MJLIH') / Revue de droit et sant6 de McGill (RDSM). With the drafting of our constitution we have planted the seed of our very own living tree-an embodiment of what is sure to be a lasting institution at McGill's Faculty of Law. We are a new voice in legal publishing, a field that is in need, in particular, of more specialist journals.2 A tous ceux qui ont donn6 leur support cette initiative croissante ds son instauration il y a A peu pros quatre ans - et particulirrement au doyen Nicholas Kasirer, aux professeures Angela Campbell et Lara Khoury, et A l'ensemble de notre comit6 consultatif - j'aimerais exprimer mes remerciements les plus sincbres. J'aimerais aussi remercier ma collbgue et amie Virginie Marier, qui me succbdera comme r6dactrice en chef pour le prochain volume de la revue, pour sa vision et son leadership dans notre renaissance comme le RDSM. In making its peer-reviewed content available free of charge on the internet (see www.mjlh.mcgill.ca), the MJLH is unique among Canadian law journals. The advent of so- called open access publishing offers a new model for the operation of scholarly journals, and its promise is reflected in the expanding literature-both general3 and specifically legal4- devoted to this pioneering concept. An oft-quoted definition of open access stems from a meeting convened in Budapest by the Open Society Institute in 2001, the purpose of which was to accelerate progress in the international effort to make research articles in all academic fields freely available on the internet: Editor-in-Chief, McGill Journal of Law and Health, Vol. 2. John Willinksy, The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006) at 30. 2 Bruce Ryder, The Past and Future of Canadian Generalist Law Journals (2001) 39 Alta. L. Rev. 625. 3 See e.g. Leslie Chan, Supporting and Enhancing Scholarship in the Digital Age: The Role of Open-Access Institutional Repositories (2004) 29 Canadian Journal of Communication 277; Dominique Foray, The Economics of Knowledge (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004); R. Kling & E. Callahan, Electronic Journals, the Internet and Scholarly Communication (2003) 37 Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 127; R.P. Peek & G.B. Newby, eds., Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996). 4 See e.g. Declaration on Public Access to Law, online: World Legal Information Institute <http://ww. worldlii.org/worldlii/declaration/>; Science Commons Open Access Law Program, online: Open Access Law Program <http://sciencecommons.org/projects/publishing/oalaw/>; Open Access Law Canada, online: OALC <http://wwv. openaccesslawcanadh.ca/>; Caroline Christiansen, Electronic Law Journals (2002) 30 Int'l J. Legal Info. 337; Dan Hunter, Walled Gardens (2005) 62 Wash. & Lee L. Rex. 607; Richard A. Danner, Applying the Access Principle in Law: The Responsibilities of the Legal Scholar (2007) 35 Int'l J. Legal Info. 355; and the numerous articles resulting from a recent symposium on open access in law, including Lawrence B. Solum, Download It While It's Hot: Open Access and Legal Scholarship (2006) 1o Lewis & Clark Law Review 841; Michael J. Madison, The Idea of the Law Review: Scholarship, Prestige and Open Access (2006) lo Lewis & Clark Law Review 9oi; Michael W. Carroll, The Movement for Open Access Law (2oo6) lo Lewis & Clark Law Review 741; Ann Bartow, 'Open Access, Law, Knowledge, Copyrights, Dominance and Subordination (2oo6) lO Lewis & Clark Law Review 869.

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