Support the SEP

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) needs your support.Over 1500 professional philosophers are donating their time and laborto collaboratively write, referee, and maintain our reference work.Our goal is to offer high-quality and authoritative discussions aboutvalues, science, religion, politics, and ideas in general. Ourauthors and editors are jointly producing entries on such topics asdemocracy, civil rights, quantum mechanics, consciousness, voluntaryeuthanasia, and on many other topics important to the human condition,all freely available. To cover the annual costs of administering andsupporting this volunteer effort, Stanford University has partneredwith the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) and theScholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) for thepurpose of building an endowment fund for the SEP. The NationalEndowment for the Humanities has endorsed and supported our effortswith a Challenge Grant of $500,000.

Three Ways to Support The SEP

• Become a Friend of the SEP and Access PDFs. Though SEP entries are freely available in HTML, you can pay modest membership dues to join theFriends of the SEP Society and become entitled to download high quality PDF (Portable Document Format) versions of SEP entries.
• Make a Donation. Pleaseconsider supporting the SEP by making a generous tax-deductiblecontribution.
• SEPIA for Libraries. We encouragelibraries and other institutions to support the SEP by joining theStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy International Associationand receiving member benefits.

We encourageprofessional scholars,generalreaders, andlibrarians to read the followingopen letters andstart a constructive dialogue aboutsupporting the SEP.

• An Open Letter to Professional Scholars
• An Open Letter to General Readers
• An Open Letter to Librarians

YouTube Video Highlighting the SEP

• Stanford News Service Interview with John Perry and Edward N. Zalta

A List of Other Documents of Interest

• ICOLC's Call for Global Library Community Action (PDF document, January 25, 2005 version)
• The Problems With a Traditional Funding Model
• The SEP's Publishing Model
• Recent Access Statistics (SEP Editorial Information page)
• The SEP's Value for Research, Education, the Profession, and the Public
• The SEP's Archives
• The SEP's Editorial Board
• Letters from Professional Organizations in Support of SEP Grant Proposals
  • American Philosophical Association
  • Canadian Philosophical Association
  • Australasian Association of Philosophy
  • European Association of Analytic Philosophy