BioMed Cetral press release

[Gordon Fletcher <Gordon@biomedcentral.com>]

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Press Release:  17th July 2001


BIOMED CENTRAL TO DEPOSIT E-JOURNALS WITH THE BRITISH LIBRARY
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The British Library has agreed to work with the BioMed Central Group to
explore the issues surrounding the creation and sustainability of a
permanent electronic holding within the UK's National Archive of
Publications for all the research articles published in the BioMed Central
(www.biomedcentral.com) family of journals. This deposit will take effect
as soon as the necessary system architecture is in place at the Library.

Jan Velterop, Publisher of the BioMed Central Group, commented on this new
development:

'This deposit into the UK's National Archive of Publications is consistent
with BioMed Central's policy of securing accessibility and permanent
archiving of its publications - it will add to the confidence of the
scientific community that their online papers are preserved for posterity
with the same degree of care as print.'

This National Archive will be another way in which the information
published in the BioMed Central journals can be made available in the long
term. Currently, all the research articles published are archived, without
delay, at the PubMed Central site (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov) and
are also indexed in PubMed.

In addition to the above online archiving solutions, BioMed Central will
also be making archival print versions of the BioMed Central journals.
These will be available on demand for libraries that require a hard copy
of the BioMed Central research articles.

All these initiatives, combined with the policy of promoting
self-archiving by authors, means that all research articles published on
BioMed Central will be permanently accessible and searchable in multiple
archives.

BioMed Central is an independent online publishing house committed to
providing immediate free access to the peer-reviewed biological and
medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that
open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient
communication of science. In addition to open-access original research,
BioMed Central also publishes reviews and other subscription-based
content.

For further information about BioMed Central go to:
http://www.biomedcentral.com, or contact: 
Gordon Fletcher, PhD 
e-mail: Gordon@biomedcentral.com, 
tel: +44 (0)20 7323 0323