**Apologies for cross-posting**

Request for signatures for the petition to the EC to fund an EU
provision to The Cochrane Library
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Dear Colleagues

Please find below a message asking you to consider signing the above
petition.

If the list accepts this attachment, there is a leaflet attached which
you
may like to use to further disseminate the message.

With thanks and best wishes

Carol

****************************************
Carol Lefebvre
Senior Information Specialist
UK Cochrane Centre
National Institute for Health Research
Summertown Pavilion
Middle Way
Oxford  OX2 7LG

For information on the Cochrane Collaboration, visit the Collaboration's
website, at www.cochrane.org.

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Petition to the European Commission to fund an EU provision to The 
Cochrane Library

As you may know, an online petition has been set up to encourage the 
European Commission to take out an EU-wide subscription to The Cochrane 
Library. The closing date for signatures to this petition is only a few 
weeks away and, if you have not already done so, I would like to invite 
you to go online and sign the petition at 
http://cochrane.epetitions.net/. Doing so should have benefits for 
everyone in Europe, including those of us in the UK and Ireland. It 
should also send a strong signal to other parts of the world about the 
importance of The Cochrane Library.

Increasing access to The Cochrane Library, now widely recognised as the 
most comprehensive source of high quality knowledge in health care, 
should help improve the quality of hundreds of millions of healthcare 
decisions taken each year about the health care of the hundreds of 
millions of people in Europe.

We have been fortunate to have free at the point of use, one click 
access to The Cochrane Library for a few years in the UK and Ireland. 
However, there is no guarantee that the contracts for these 
subscriptions will continue. By signing the petition, you will add your 
name to the call to extend this access to people in many other 
countries as well as making access here more sustainable. In 
international terms, EU wide access will build on recent initiatives, 
such as the national provision throughout India and the opening up of 
The Cochrane Library to the poorest countries of the world in 2007.

One of the challenges facing The Cochrane Collaboration is trying to 
ensure that people have access to Cochrane reviews, but this is so much 
less than the challenges often faced by the people trying to take 
decisions about health care. Subscriptions to The Cochrane Library that 
"hide" behind user names and passwords put unnecessary barriers in the 
way. An EU wide subscription would demolish these barriers, since the 
computers hosting The Cochrane Library would recognise automatically 
the national location of the user's computer and allow them direct 
access. Allowing everyone in Europe - not just those lucky enough to 
have a personal or institutional subscription - to get inside The 
Cochrane Library will help ensure that the knowledge in Cochrane 
reviews is available to all the people who need it: everyone taking 
decisions about health care.

Mike Clarke
Director, UK Cochrane Centre