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 so granting a print subscription can often be impractical and expensive—the marginal cost of sendingADC to Africa is around £25 each year.

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

The marginal cost of giving access to …