Biomednet reviews

[David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>]

Bernd-Christoph Kaemper has determined that Elsevier has recently made a
change in policy affecting the Biomednet Reviews package. More precisely,
according to him:
 
"The former restriction to reviews only of BioMedNet Reviews (the
customizable life science reviews resource of Elsevier Science which
contains this group of Journals as Core Journals) is no longer valid, as
any of you who currently have trial access to BMNR may easily see by
selecting the option "Browse Journals" within reviews.bmn.com for any of
the Current Opinion and Trends Journals (including 9 "Technology
Supplements", i.e. the Trends guides and Drug Discovery Today with
Supplements). These core journals are now covered with full content
including sections like Opinion, Research update, News & comment, and
Forum for the Trends series, and Paper Alert and Web Alert for the Current
Opinion series. You will note that many of these sections are now also
present when you create your own virtual journals by customization of
BMNR.  .... Neither the BMNR website nor other promotional material makes
a note of this policy change.  Please note that [this] ... applies only to
the set of 25+9 core journals in BMNR (and to the site-wide institutional
single-title online access that is available through a CT135 (35% premium
print + online) subscription), not to the additional layer of 104 further
life sciences journals in BMNR from which only the full reviews are
contained."

In my paper at the E-Libraries Section of the National ("Nature and
others: restricted electronic access and financial discrimination")
(http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/dg/Natureand.html), I remarked on four
publishers widely known for this discrimination. Two of them have now
changed their policy.  Another one has told me informally that they are
reconsidering.  Obviously, these changes reflect the complaints of very
many others besides myself; all I did was join the chorus.

That leaves "Science."

David Goodman
Biology Librarian 
and Digital Resources Researcher
Princeton University Library
Princeton, NJ 08544-0001
phone: 609-258-3235
fax: 609-258-2627
e-mail: dgoodman@princeton.edu