For some years now it has been the policy of the BMJ Publishing Group to give free subscriptions to its journals to applicants from countries in the developing world. However, in practice this has had its difficulties. Many developing countries have either poor or non-existent postal services and granting a print subscription can often be problematic and expensivethe marginal cost of sending the Postgraduate Medical Journal to Africa is around £25 each year.

An editorial in the BMJ sets out the arguments very clearly.¹ We know that the gap between the rich and poor countries is widening. While those of us in the developed world have information overload, the developing countries have bare library shelves. The internet gives us the opportunity to narrow the gap.

The marginal cost of giving access to the electronic edition of the Postgraduate Medical Journal is close to zero. What is more, those in . . . [Full text of this article]