To promote Open Access Week 2016, from October 24 through October 30, ECS is taking down the paywall to the ECS Digital Library (http://ecsdl.org).

Over 132,000 articles will be freely available to anyone who wants to read them. ECS is giving the world a preview of what complete open access will look like when we have completed our Free the Science (http://www.electrochem.org/free-the-science) campaign.

ECS believes that open access—especially in electrochemistry and solid state sciences—is an important goal for scientific and technological development and, quite simply, creating a better world. Ensuring that everyone working on these issues—wherever they are in the world, and for whomever they work—has access to the latest research is in our best interests as a nonprofit professional society supporting researchers everywhere, and in the best interests of all the sciences.

Just some of the subjects covered by our journals include:

* energy storage and conversion, from small scale to large scale: batteries, fuel cells, biofuels, supercapacitors, grid-scaling;

* environmental remediation of materials used in research;

* corrosion of infrastructures;

* clean water and sanitation;

* the growth of nanotechnology;

* processes to develop safer and more effective drugs;

* improving and developing new medical devices; and\

* sensors for environmental cleanup, emissions monitoring, detection of illegal and dangerous materials, home and workplace safety, and medical diagnosis and care.

Free the Science is a business-model changing initiative that will make our research freely available to all readers, while remaining free for authors to publish. It is a new publishing standard for ECS, one of the last independent scientific society publishers. We already give authors the choice to publish their work as Open Access and we plan to open access to the entire ECS Digital Library by 2024.

ECS believes that by opening, and democratizing research, we can more rapidly advance our important sciences and society at large, while directly fulfilling our mission. The key to scientific advancement has always been the open exchange of information. Yet even in today’s digital environment, many scientists around the world struggle to access quality, reliable research. The bottom line is discoveries need discoverability and that is only guaranteed through full Open Access.

The ECS Digital Library is home to the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the flagship journal of ECS, published continuously since 1902, and to the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, ECS Electrochemistry Letters, ECS Solid State Letters, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, ECS Transactions, ECS Meeting Abstracts, and Interface.

ECS has not yet reached a place where it can sustainably make all of our publications open access, but it is our goal and we want to celebrate our vision of the future during Open Access Week. So, please spread the word. From October 24 through October 30, anyone will be able to read any of the content in our Digital Library for free.

Through our Free the Science initiative, we hope to make this the “norm” in the future.