BioMed Central membership announcement

[Grace Baynes <Grace@biomedcentral.com>]

BioMed Central Membership Announcement

15 September 2004

BioMed Central, the Open Access Publisher, will reinstate a flat fee FTE
membership pricing model for renewing individual institutions for 2005.
This short-term measure is in direct response to feedback from customers.

BioMed Central held a consultation workshop, with member librarians and
funding organisations, at the end of August to discuss the future
mechanisms for funding Open Access publishing. The attendees concluded
that it is logical that Open Access publishing is paid for from research
funds. BioMed Central will work on these recommendations to put processes
in place to gather payment from research grants directly.

However, in the short-term the support of individual libraries for Open
Access is key. To enable individual customers to continue their membership
using current budget structures, BioMed Central will extend the flat fee
pricing model for a further year. BioMed Central values its customers, and
has listened to feedback about its payment model for Open Access
publishing and its current membership programme.

BioMed Central has taken this step to ensure the continued growth of Open
Access publishing while discussions about payment take place at government
and funding organisation level. Whilst in the early stages of the
transition to widespread Open Access publishing, BioMed Central feels it
is essential to offer its customers various models and options to continue
to support their users and researchers when publishing in BioMed Central's
Open Access journals.

For more information, please visit the BioMed Central Institutional
Membership Program page
(http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/instmembership) or contact one of
our Sales Representatives who will be able to answer any questions you may
have. Contact details are available at
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/libraries/salescontacts/.

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Grace Baynes
Marketing Communications Manager
BioMed Central
Middlesex House
34-42 Cleveland Street
London W1T 4LB
T: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
F: +44 (0)20 7631 9926
http://www.biomedcentral.com/