BioMed Central announce new publishing initiative

[Gordon Fletcher <Gordon@biomedcentral.com>]

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Press Release:  29th August 2001
For Immediate Release

Contact: Dr Gordon Fletcher
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 0323
Fax: +44 (0)20 7580 1938
E-mail: gordon@biomedcentral.com
Website: http://www.biomedcentral.com
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BIOMED CENTRAL ANNOUNCES FIRST WAVE OF JOURNALS IN A NEW PUBLISHING
INITIATIVE

Today BioMed Central announces the first group of research journals to be
launched in a new publishing initiative. This initiative is designed to
allow groups of researchers to publish online journals representing their
community and to offer free access to the research articles within these
new journals. The journals will use BioMed Central's established
publishing infrastructure, comprising an online submission system,
electronic tools for peer-review, and the ability to publish accepted
articles in both PDF and HTML formats.

The peer-reviewed research articles in these journals will be indexed in
the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database, PubMed (widely
used by researchers, clinicians and the general public) and deposited
without delay in PubMed Central, the electronic repository of complete
publications.

The first 12 journals to be published cover a wide range of research areas
in biology and medicine - Cancer Cell International, Cardiovascular
Diabetology, Annals of General Hospital Psychiatry, Kinetoplastid Biology
and Disease, Microbial Cell Factories, Natural Negatives, The Malaria
Journal, Filarial Infections - Diseases and their Control, The Nutrition
Journal, Proteome Science, International Journal of Equity in Health,
Directed Evolution.

Harvey Shoolman, Commissioning Director says,

"This is an exciting development in scientific journal publishing. These
12 journals are the first of many that we will be launching in response to
the enthusiastic demand for this service. Essentially we are trying to
empower focussed research groups wherever they may be. We want to respond
to their needs and encourage them to advance their field and publish their
results within a framework that nourishes and incubates the journal
without being constrained by the conventional publisher's concern for
subscription revenues."

Denys Wheatley, editor on Cancer Cell International, one of the 12 new
journals to be published by BioMed Central, states the advantages he sees
in publishing with BioMed Central,

"Some of the more obvious benefits are: papers can be published as they
arise, peer reviewing will be done electronically speeding up this
practice, the time from submission to on-line publication can be less than
50 days, images will be publishable at no cost at the resolution required
and the problem of reprints and their cost will not arise... What more can
you expect or want?"

BioMed Central, which already publishers over 60 journals in Biology and
Medicine, expects over a hundred new journals to be added over the coming
months. All original research articles published by BioMed Central are
freely accessible without restriction.

For further information on these new journals visit:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/newjournals.asp 

For further information on journal publishing with BioMed Central visit:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/startyourown.asp

BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com) 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.

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