INIST/BioMed Central Partnership

[Gordon Fletcher <Gordon@biomedcentral.com>]

This press release may be of interest to readers of this list

Contact Gordon Fletcher, gordon@biomedcentral.com, +44 (0)20 7323 0323

03 December 2002
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New partnership between INIST-CNRS and BioMed Central will create new
national archive of open access research

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BioMed Central (the open access publisher) and INIST (the highly
specialized documentation centre of French government-funded scientific
research organization CNRS) have come together to create a new archive of
open access research. In addition, all researchers at CNRS will be able to
submit their work, free of charge, to any of BioMed Central's journals as
part of the publisher's institutional membership program.

This partnership fits in with the INIST policy of providing the research
community at large with up-to-date technology and improving access to and
dissemination of scientific and technical information. It is also
consistent with BioMed Central's efforts to increase the visibility of the
peer-reviewed articles it publishes through widespread indexing and
archiving initiatives.

Currently, all the research articles published in BioMed Central's
journals are archived, without delay, at the United States National
Library of Medicine's PubMed Central site
(http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov). The INIST national archive will be a
further way in which the information published in the BioMed Central
journals is securely archived and by which it can be accessed in the long
term. In addition to these online archiving initiatives, 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
printed copy of the research articles published by BioMed Central.

The decision of CNRS to join BioMed Central's membership program is an
endorsement of the company's innovative publishing model, which funds open
access by charging a fee for managing peer review and formatting
manuscripts. Article processing charges, as these fees are known, are paid
by an author or by the institution with which they are affiliated.

Jan Velterop, Publisher at BioMed Central is delighted by the creation of
this new archive, "We are, at BioMed Central, very excited by this
partnership and we are confident that it will bring the expected benefits
for all parties concerned, but especially for the scientific communities
in the life and medical sciences."

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For further information about BioMed Central visit 
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info 

For further information about CNRS visit
http://www.cnrs.fr/ 

For further information about INIST visit
http://www.inist.fr/ 

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.

INIST - Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique du CNRS
(http://www.inist.fr) is a leading player in the production and the
dissemination of scientific and technical information (STI) in Europe,
INIST has been developing advanced information access tools for several
years, tailoring these to the specific requirements of scientific and
academic communities. Drawing mainly on new technologies for information
and communication (NTIC), INIST tests and provides new dedicated platforms
for electronic publishing, current awareness services, training and
scientific communication.

CNRS is the main French government-funded research organization, carrying
out scientific research. CNRS laboratories vary in size and structure and
work in close co-operation with the French University system and
specialized French government organizations, as well as other
international research organizations throughout the world.