Cataloguing open access

[jan velterop <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>]

Dear Librarians,

Although many of you do include them, it is sometimes a bit frustrating to
notice that not in every library open access journals are properly
catalogued . Surely, it can't be because they don't have to be paid for in
order to get access?

I would like to make the case that authors who publish in open access
journals materially contribute to the improvement of scientific
communication and therefore deserve their articles not to be excluded from
library catalogues, even though it is in the nature of open access
articles that they can be easily found using web search engines such as
Google. Inclusion in library catalogues not only ensures that they can be
browsed and found in local searches, but it also aids the general
acceptability and visibility of open access journals as alternatives to
the expensive and disseminationally (sorry!) restrictive traditional
subscription-based ones.

The cataloguing data for the almost 100 journals that BioMed Central
publishes can be found here:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/libraries/catalog

Thank you for including them.

Jan Velterop
BioMed Central