American Chemical Society broadens access to its articles

[Adam Chesler <a_chesler@acs.org>]

I believe the following will be of interest to readers of this list.  
Links to further information are at the bottom of the press release; you
may feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.

American Chemical Society broadens access to its articles Conditions set
for free availability one year after publication

http://pubs.acs.org/pressrelease/article_access.html
http://pubs.acs.org/pressrelease/article_access.pdf
  
The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, is
broadening access to research articles published in its 33 scholarly
journals. The Society is introducing two new experimental policies that
define how readers can view free digital versions of ACS articles
beginning one year after publication.

First, in response to public access guidelines recently released by the
NIH(1), the ACS will post, for public accessibility 12 months after
publication, the peer-reviewed version of authors' manuscripts on the
National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central during 2005. The NIH policy
encourages authors whose work it funds to submit their peer-reviewed
manuscripts to PubMed Central, the agency's free digital archive of
biomedical and life sciences journal literature.

Commenting on this new service, ACS Publications Senior Vice President
Brian Crawford said, "We understand that NIH-funded authors will wish to
comply voluntarily with the NIH's policy request. By introducing this
service, the ACS will take on the administrative burden of compliance and
at the same time will ensure the integrity of the scientific literature by
depositing the appropriate author version of the manuscript after
peer-review."

Second, as a value-added service to ACS authors and a method of further
opening access to its content, the full-text version of all research
articles published in ACS journals will be made available at no charge via
an author-directed Web link 12 months after final publication. Allowing
unrestricted access to articles 12 months after publication is an
expansion of the Society's current practice of permitting 50 downloads of
authors' articles free of charge during the first year of publication.
This initiative will go into effect during 2005.

"We are very pleased to expand access in this way to research published in
ACS journals," said Crawford. "It is fundamental to the ACS mission to
support and promote the research enterprise and to foster communication
among its scientists. Providing unrestricted access via author-directed
links 12 months after publication - in addition to the 50 free e-prints
currently allowed during the first year of publication - reinforces that
mission."

Robert Bovenschulte, president of the ACS Publications Division, said
"These experimental policies balance the important goal of expanding
dissemination of research with the need to preserve the integrity of the
scientific record as well as the viability of our journals program."

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization, chartered by
the U.S. Congress, with a multidisciplinary membership of more than
158,000 chemists and chemical engineers. It publishes numerous scientific
journals and databases, convenes major research conferences and provides
educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main
offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

(1) Notice Number NOT-OD-05-022/

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html
 
Released: March 7, 2005

#13859

Related Press Releases:

� American Chemical Society broadens author-directed article access:
http://pubs.acs.org/pressrelease/e_prints.html 

� American Chemical Society policy will offer service to authors of
NIH-funded research articles: http://pubs.acs.org/pressrelease/nih.html


***********************************************
Adam Chesler
Assistant Director, Sales and Library Relations
American Chemical Society
1155 16th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036

Office Telephone/FAX:  (781) 381-2814
Cell Phone:  (617) 230-3201
E-Mail:  a_chesler@acs.org

Web Site:  pubs.acs.org