This month the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy turns four, and its impact is being felt by grateful readers around the world.

Downloads have been initiated from nearly every country. What’s more, individual voices are now associated with many of those downloads. We have been collecting comments from readers since July 2012, and we have learned in just a matter of months of the many new and thankful audiences that are finding the MIT faculty’s articles.

Appreciative comments have come from students, job seekers, researchers in developing nations, independent scholars, journalists, hobbyists, retired engineers and scientists, and patient advocates, among others.

These comments reflect the success of the faculty in meeting their goal of “disseminating the fruits of [their] research and scholarship as widely as possible,” through their Open Access Policy.

This news is being reported in celebration of the 4th anniversary of the adoption of the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.