BioMed Central announce national Open Access agreement for Finland

[Liblicense-L Listowner <liblicen@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 15:13:28 +0100
From: Natasha Robshaw <natasha@biomedcentral.com>
Subject: BioMed Central announce national Open Access agreement for Finland
 
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PRESS RELEASE: 10 May 2004
For immediate release
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NATIONAL BIOMED CENTRAL MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT FOR FINLAND

Finland is the first country to make a nationwide commitment to support
Open Access publishing with BioMed Central, it was announced today. All
universities, polytechnics and research institutes in Finland have become
BioMed Central members. The membership agreement covers the cost of
publication, in BioMed Central's 100+ Open Access journals, for all 25000
publicly funded researchers and teachers in Finland.
 
BioMed Central agreed the membership with FinELib, the National Electronic
Library of Finland. A consortium of universities, polytechnics, research
institutes and regional libraries, FinELib is part of the National
Library's services for libraries. FinELib acquires Finnish and
international resources to support teaching, learning and research. 86
institutions from the consortium will take part in the membership deal,
adding 80 new institutions to BioMed Central's membership program.
 
Kristiina Hormia-Poutanen, Head, National Electronic Library Services,
explained why the National Electronic Library took the decision,
 
"The aim of FinELib is to promote access to information. Open access is an
important movement to improve access to information all over the world.
Open access enables the most effective distribution of research results
and can have significant impact to the Finnish innovation system.
 
FinElib is also interersted in the developments in new business models
which are evolving."
 
Finland's decision represents a landmark in the move towards Open Access
for all biomedical research. BioMed Central, the largest Open Access
publisher, has seen their membership program go from strength to strength.
Over 300 institutions worldwide became members in 2003. These included the
NHS in England and all UK universities, all institutions in Ohio, USA, 18
institutions in Australia, and the Max Planck Society. BioMed Central now
has 500 member institutions in 39 countries. 
 
Natasha Robshaw, Head of Marketing and Sales at BioMed Central, said:
 
"We are very excited to welcome FinELib on board as members. Finland is
leading the world in its nationwide commitment to Open Access, and this is
a huge boost for the Open Access movement. We look forward to other
nations making the same strides to support making research findings freely
available."
 
For more information:
Press Office Contacts:
Grace Baynes for BioMed Central
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 2988
E-mail: grace.baynes@biomedcentral.com

About BioMed Central
 
BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online
publishing house committed to providing immediate access without charge 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.
 
BioMed Central's business model is based on charging authors to publish,
and then making the content free to readers. Under the agreement,
article-processing charges are waived - for all publicly funded
researchers in Finland - for publication in any of BioMed Central's 100+
peer-reviewed journals. Upon acceptance, the article becomes available
online without charge to readers worldwide. Many researchers from Finnish
institutions have already published in BioMed Central journals.

BioMed Central's Institutional Membership Program was launched in January
2002 and now has well over 400 members, including some of the world's most
prestigious academic institutions. NHS England, Cancer Research UK, the
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and the World Health Organization are all
BioMed Central Institutional Members.

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