Press Release: BioMed Central launches repository service forinstitutions

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

From: Grace Baynes [mailto:grace.baynes@biomedcentral.com] 
Sent: 13 September 2004 11:15

PRESS RELEASE: 13 September 2004 

BioMed Central launches repository service for institutions 

BioMed Central, the Open Access Publisher, today launched a repository
service for universities and research institutions. Open Repository has
been conceived in direct response to demand in the market.

The UK House of Commons Science & Technology Committee report 'Scientific
Publications: Free for all?*' and The U.S. House Appropriations Committee
draft report, concerning NIH-funded research, are two of the strongest
calls for mandating Open Access to the published results of publicly
funded research. Around the world there are increasing moves towards Open
Access by government and funding bodies, meaning that institutional
repositories are fast becoming a necessity.

Open Repository offers professional help to institutions to quickly and
easily build, launch, maintain, and populate their institutional
repositories. The service has been designed to be flexible and
cost-effective. The Open Repository service makes it possible for
institutions that could not otherwise afford to, or lack the
infrastructure or technical capacity in-house, to set up repositories.

Jan Velterop, Publisher and Director of BioMed Central explains why Open
Repository is being launched,

"Institutional repositories have great potential for opening up the
scientific literature. Their potential, however, will only be fully
realised if those repositories are set up well and in such a way that
their content is truly freely accessible, which involves adherence to
established formatting and metadata standards as well as linking to, and
embedding in, the worldwide network of science literature. We already do
this for our own journals."

Open Repository offers a number of different levels of service, to fit
with a university or institution's requirements. For a one-off set-up fee,
BioMed Central will build the repository with open source software
D-Space, with complete customization to the customer's requirements.
Repositories built under the scheme will be able to accept a wide variety
of publication types. It is then up to the institution whether they wish
BioMed Central to host and run the repository or to transfer operation and
maintenance to themselves. The institution remains the owner of the
repository.

For an annual fee, BioMed Central offers to maintain the repository and
guarantee ongoing customer support. BioMed Central's Open Repository
service will include converting articles to PDF and XML. Advanced search
functionality will be a part of the service, as will links to and from
databases, for example PubMed, and via CrossRef to the body of scientific
literature.

Velterop continues, 

"BioMed Central is uniquely placed to offer this service, given the
company's extensive experience and expertise in successfully building and
running its Open Access publishing platform, which is in effect a highly
complex implementation of a repository. At BioMed Central we see Open
Repository as complementary to our fast-growing stable of Open Access
journals, currently 110 titles, in accelerating the widespread
availability of Open Access to research results."

About BioMed Central 

BioMed Central (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.

*The Science and Technology Committee, Tenth Report of Session 2003-04,
Scientific Publications: Free for all? (HC 399-I).

Extract from the report: 

The UK House of Commons Report recommended that "the requirement for
universities to disseminate their research as widely as possible be
written into their charters. In addition, SHERPA should be funded by DfES
to allow it to make grants available to all research institutions for the
establishment and maintenance of repositories." (Recommendation 43)
Further, the Committee said "We recommend that the Research Councils and
other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a
copy of all their articles in their institution's repository within one
month of publication or a reasonable period to be agreed following
publication, as a condition of their research grant." (Recommendation 44)

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/3991
4.htm

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/