the best things in life are free

The The arXiv wants your $

arXiv  is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics

each day it receives several hundred e-prints, mostly preprints, categorizes them and distributes the list of papers, with full access to the pdf and, when available, the TeX source  - which is most of the time, TeX rocks

authors submit the e-prints, with license to distribute, and users receive the list of the day's papers, for the categories they express interest in, and access to content, free, originally by e-mail, now web

almost all papers in theoretical physics, mathematics and astrophysics now go on the arXiv, as does an increasing fraction from the newer fields
there are multiple other *Xivs  covering other subject areas with varying degree of success

the arXiv now holds over a million e-prints, going back to 1991, and a little bit beyond, as people have sent in old stuff to archive on the arXiv, e-prints are coming at about 10,000 per month and growing

the service is slim, by design, almost minimalistic, but oh so powerful

you all use it, obsessively, you couldn't do without it!

arXiv is not actually cost free, it as an IT staff, its own server and a management team and development team
a lot of the current cost is provided by member institutions, and Cornell University

but... we could use more, so the annual fundraising drive is under way, this week only
 - ok, you can give any time, but this is sorta special