Open access publishing

[Gordon Fletcher <Gordon@biomedcentral.com>]

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

Press Release: 19 December 2002
For Immediate Release

Contact: 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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The Public Library of Science will operate the Open Access 
publishing model that BioMed Central is using
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The Public Library of Science's (PLoS) decision to publish a series of
open access journals funded by a $9 million grant from the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation adds weight to the growing movement calling for all
research articles to be made freely available. The addition of a new open
access publisher will give scientists more choice and control over the way
their work is published and put further pressure on conventional
publishers who have been slow to react to the demands of their customers.

Open access is a system of publishing that focuses on the needs of the
authors to have their work made available as widely as possible, rather
than just to those who can afford a subscription. BioMed Central has
pioneered a publishing system that provides open access to research
articles in its online journals. Open access is maintained by a payment
for the processing and the conversion of an author's manuscript into a
professionally formatted research article.

Jan Velterop, Publisher at BioMed Central, welcomes the Public Library of
Science's decision to start open access journals,

"Thousands of researchers are already publishing in BioMed Central's open
access journals because they think the current system is not doing justice
to their work and is not good enough for science. The arrival of a new
open access publisher will add further choice for researchers as well as
helping to promote the value of open access publishing to scientists who
are concerned with maximising the visibility and impact of their
research."

Open access publishing attracts strong support. The Howard Hughes Medical
Institute is the first major funding body openly to announce financial
support "...to cover the costs of open access publication by means of a
budget supplement to each of its investigators." We hope that other major
foundations and funding bodies will follow.

The stance of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a strong endorsement
of open access publishing and complements the commitment made by BioMed
Central's many Institutional Members
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/instmembership. The BMC
Institutional Membership Program has over 75 institutional members
including,Harvard, Cornell and the National Institutes of Health. All
participating institutions have provided funds (often from their library
budgets) in recognition of the importance of open access publishing to the
academic community and the long term financial savings offered by this
program.

The decision of the Public Library of Science to join BioMed Central in
this new way of publishing science confirms the close alliance of both
organisations in the battle to maximise the distribution of scientific
information.

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Further Information

The Public Library of Science announcement can be found online at
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/PLoS_Moore_PressRelease_17Dec2002.pdf

Further information about BioMed Central can be found at
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/


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.

The Public Library of Science
(http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org) is a non-profit
organization of scientists committed to making the world's
scientific and medical literature a public resource.