Press release: All Irish Universities subscribe to Faculty of 1000 Biology from BioMed Central

[Grace Baynes <Grace@biomedcentral.com>]

Of possible interest to the readers of this list. With apologies for
cross-posting.

Press release: 11 March 2005: For immediate release

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All Irish Universities subscribe to Faculty of 1000 Biology from BioMed
Central
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BioMed Central announced today that all of the universities in Ireland
have signed a two-year subscription agreement for Faculty of 1000 Biology
under the Irish Research electronic Libraries (IReL) initiative. Faculty
of 1000 Biology, a revolutionary literature awareness service that
systematically highlights the most interesting papers published in the
biological sciences, will now be available to all staff and students at
the participating universities.

In addition to subscribing to Faculty of 1000 Biology, IReL has subscribed
to Genome Biology, the high quality journal for the post-genomic era and
signed up for BioMed Central membership.  The Membership agreement covers
cost of publication in BioMed Central's 130+ Open Access journals for all
seven universities in Ireland for the next two years, whereby all staff
and students at Irish universities can publish research articles without
directly incurring the usual article processing charge.

IReL is funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and Higher Education
Authority (HEA), who announced last year that they would invest €20
million over the next five years to fund electronic information resources
at a national level in all seven Irish university libraries. The first
phase of the project is to provide comprehensive online access to
biomedical and ICT resources, like Genome Biology and Faculty of 1000
Biology. Paul Sheehan, chairman of the Conference of Heads of Irish
Universities (CHIU), said that the group decided to make BioMed
Central’s products part of the IReL offering because “They are
considered essential tools for research in the field of biomedicine.”

The subscription agreement was negotiated by Content Complete Ltd, an
independent outsourced negotiations service selected by IReL to handle a
number of the publisher negotiations. According to Albert Prior of Content
Complete, "Our discussions with BioMed Central were very productive and we
were very pleased to act on behalf of IReL in reaching a agreement that
brings significant benefits to researchers ands students at the
universities."

Faculty of 1000 Biology is an online service that systematically
highlights the most interesting papers published in the biological
sciences, based on the recommendations of over 1900 leading scientists.
The end-product is a rapid service, run by scientists, that provides a
consensus view of important papers and trends across biology. Users can
customize the service to their interests and opt for regular updates by
email. Over 80% of the world’s top institutions already subscribe. The
universities covered by the deal are: Dublin City University; National
University of Ireland, Galway; National University of Ireland, Maynooth;
Trinity College Dublin; University College Cork; University College
Dublin; University of Limerick.  All staff and students at these
institutions will have full access to Faculty of 1000 Biology and Genome
Biology for the next two years.

# # #

Further Information

For further information about Faculty of 1000 Biology, Genome Biology or
BioMed Central please contact Grace Baynes (press@biomedcentral.com or +44
20 7631 2988) or visit our website http://www.biomedcentral.com/).

For more information about the IReL, please contact Fiona McGoldrick :
fiona.mcgoldrick@ucd.ie  Tel: +353 1 71675 33
For more information about Content Complete Ltd, please contact Albert Prior
aprior@contentcomplete.com Tel: +44 1993 880044

About Faculty of 1000 Biology

Faculty of 1000 Biology is the next generation literature awareness tool.
It is a revolutionary new online research service that comprehensively and
systematically highlights and reviews the most interesting papers
published in the biological sciences, based on the recommendations of a
faculty of well over 1900 of the world's leading researchers. A full list
can be found on the Faculty of 1000 Biology website
http://www.facultyof1000.com/about/members.

To read further press releases from Faculty of 1000 Biology visit:
http://www.facultyof1000.com/about/press
Faculty of 1000 Biology is published by BioMed Central
(http://www.biomedcentral.com)

About BioMed Central Membership

BioMed Central's business model is based on charging authors to publish,
and then making the content free to readers. Under membership agreements,
authors from member institutions will not be asked to pay an article
processing charge when publishing research. The charge is instead covered
by the institution's BioMed Central membership. This applies to all of
BioMed Central's 130+ peer-reviewed journals. Upon acceptance, the article
becomes available online without charge to readers worldwide.

BioMed Central's Institutional Membership Program was launched in January
2002 and now has over 450 members, including some of the world's most
prestigious academic institutions.

About Genome Biology

Genome Biology publishes articles from the full spectrum of biology.
Subjects covered include any aspect of molecular, cellular, organismal or
population biology studied from a genomic perspective, as well as
genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, genomic methods (including structure
prediction), computational biology, sequence analysis (including
large-scale and cross-genome analyses), comparative biology and evolution.
Genome Biology includes both Open Access research and premium content,
available via subscription.

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 7580 1938
http://www.biomedcentral.com/
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