Distribution of medical research articles on the World Wide Web.

Ninety-eight percent of 51 polled medical editors felt that published research articles should be available to the public on the World Wide Web at no charge, after a mean time from publication of 1.4 years for viewing and 1.9 years for printing. Public libraries or other government institutions could be allowed to assume the responsibility of housing and distributing the electronically stored archived material, analogous to their role with printed material, lifting the financial burden from the publishing companies.