|
Consortium NEWS
This year we have received huge interest from consortia for our BioMed Central
membership. In March NHS England became members, in July JISC signed an
agreement for membership for all UK Universities, these two agreements mean
that nearly every researcher in England can publish in any BioMed Central
journal without incurring the usual $500 article processing charge. Following
this we have now signed membership agreements with consortium far and wide,
including:
SCAMEL (Southern Central Academic Medical Libraries) – 12 institutions
in the states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana
CONBLS (Consortium of Biomedical Libraries in the South) – 14 institutions
in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina,
Tennessee
CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation) – 5 institutions in
the states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota
OhioLINK – 84 Institutions in the state of Ohio
CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians) – 14 institutions
in Australia
Conference Attendance
BioMed Central will be attending the following conferences over the coming
months. Please contact us at institutions@biomedcentral.com
for an appointment or just drop by our booth if you are planning to attend
any of these events. We look forward to meeting you!
Online Information 2003, London UK
Visit us at Booth Number 287 at the Online Information show from the 2nd-4th
December.
2004 ALA Midwinter Meeting, San Diego US
Visit us at Booth Number 2020 at the American Library Association's 2004
Midwinter Meeting from the 9th-14th January.
Don't miss the debate on open access and the
future of scientific publishing between JanVelterop, Publisher, BioMed
Central Ltd and Reed Elsevier.
VALA 04, Melbourne, Australia
Visit us at the Victoria Association for Library Automation's 12th Biennial
Conference and Exhibition from the 3rd-5th February
UKSG Annual Conference, Manchester UK
Visit us at the United Kingdom Serials Group meeting from the 29th-31st
March
MLA 2004, Washington US
Visit us at the Medical Library Association's Annual Meeting from the
21st-26th May.
Focus on Faculty of 1000 Biology
Two years after its launch Faculty
of 1000 Biology is still the only authoritative literature awareness
service that highlights and evaluates the most interesting papers published
in the biological sciences, based on the recommendations of a Faculty of,
currently, over 1600 of the world's leading researchers.
As this unique service grows in popularity it continues to expand
its services to include exciting new features.
- Users can now download their favourite Faculty of 1000 Biology papers
using Endnote or Ref Manager.
- Our new “Dissenting Opinion” feature shows the papers
and evaluations that our Faculty members have disagreed on.
- It's now easier to find evaluations within your speciality –
the new related articles feature links evaluations for similar papers.
- Faculty of 1000 Biology now includes evaluations from over 200 new
Faculty Members, bringing our total contributors up to over 1600.
- Look out for new Faculties due to be launched in 2004 as Faculty of
1000 Biology continues to increase its scope.
Sign up for new journal launch alerts
BioMed Central has launched over 40 new open access journals
in the last 2 years (full
list here) and we have many more on the horizon. Please sign
up here for e-mail alerts to notify you of newly launched journal
title, ISSN, URL and journal scope information.
New Journals launched most recently, include:
- Cell Communication and signalling
- Genetic Vaccines and Therapy
- Journal of Circadian Rhythms
- Journal of Translational Medicine
To catalogue BioMed Central's open access journals on your own website
please click
here |
|
Sales Contacts at BioMed Central
Marie Martens has moved to a new area within the company, and is now
working on informing scientists about publishing with BioMed Central.
Marianne Josserand has joined the BioMed Central sales team and has taken
on Marie's accounts and contacts. She is working alongside Mark Bevan
and Silvia Serra to spread the word about BioMed Central's subscription
services.
To see the whole team, along with their contact details, take a look
at our new Sales
Contacts page.
New BioMed Central Catalogue
The new 2004 BioMed Central Catalogue is now available and has been sent
out to all of our contacts. Detailing new developments and new products
from BioMed Central as well as useful sales and customer service information,
this is your essential guide to our wide portfolio of products and services.
If you haven't received your catalogue, or would like further copies
sent to you, please let us know at institutions@biomedcentral.com,
we'll be happy to help.
FREE 30-Day Trials
We are happy to provide institutions with a FREE 30-day trial of BioMed
Central's online subscription products.
Trials are helpful when evaluating products, and BioMed Central will
also supply promotional materials to each institution to ensure as many
people as possible know about each trial.
Simply click
here for more information and to arrange your FREE 30-day trial.
Promotional Materials for Everyone!
The BioMed Central Resource Center for Librarians continues to supply
librarians with all the promotional items they need for our complete range
of subscription products. From posters and flyers to logos and email text,
materials to publicise and promote your BioMed Central trial or subscription
can be downloaded from each product
page
Journal of Biology - new issue in print
and online
Journal of Biology has just published a new issue
in print and online. To ensure that your library has a copy of Volume
2 issue 3 please sign up here
to receive your free print issue. Ensure that your researchers have easy
access by cataloguing this Open Access journal for exceptional biological
research on your library's website.
|
The pioneers behind membership acquisitions
This year we have had huge growth in membership numbers with now more
than 350 BioMed Central members which is a 290% increase on 2002. A great
number of key decision makers and librarians within institutions have
chosen to become BioMed Central Members. These institutions and individuals
are setting a pioneering example of what can be done to enhance the communication
of science, and we are grateful for their continued support of our philosophy
and publishing program. For this reason we have asked a number of our
Members to submit Membership profiles, below is a comment from one of
our pioneers:
Linda Watson, Director of the Health Sciences Library at
the University of Virginia.
 |
|
"I
believe it is important for libraries and their universities to
invest in new models of scholarly communication which return intellectual
property rights to the scholars and their institutions, and which
support open access. In addition to investing resources in an institutional
license to BioMed Central, we must also invest time and energy in
educating our faculties and promotion and tenure committees as well
as funding agencies about what is at stake." |
To join our pioneering institutions and decision makers, or for more information
about why and how your institution can become a Member please visit our
information pages.
Open
Access Now
In July BioMed Central launched Open Access Now - a new forum
for open access news and debate. Since then, new content has been added
every two weeks. News, in-depth interviews and much more make this an
invaluable resource for those interested in the Open Access movement.
Open Access Now provides information for researchers about the
revolution that is taking place in the way research findings are published
and distributed. The aim is to inform and educate researchers concerning
the many and complex issues surrounding the debate about Open Access.
Open Access Now appears in print in The Scientist,
and is also available online. The Open
Access Now website features additional information and resources,
and you can sign up to receive an alert by email when new content is available.
Two new Open Access archives
Research published by BioMed Central is now being deposited in
two more open access archives.
Recently, BioMed Central and Koninklijke
Bibliotheek (KB), the National Library of the Netherlands, signed
an agreement to secure the long-term digital archiving of all research
published by BioMed Central. As well as archiving all of the research
articles BioMed Central publishes, the KB has committed to updating the
archive as technology changes. This will preserve the articles as a usable
resource and ensure open access in perpetuity.
The University of Potsdam
has established a mirror of all BioMed Central's open access research
articles. The site offers browsing, metadata search and full text search.
Articles are available in HTML or PDF formats, and users can also access
high-resolution graphics and videos.
All the research articles published in BioMed Central's journals are
also archived at the United States National Library of Medicine's PubMed
Central site and by INIST,
the documentation centre of French scientific research organization CNRS.
Open Access developments
Since our last Library update, there have been a phenomenal number
of developments in the open access movement. Here are just a few:
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
(HHMI) announced that it will cover the article processing charge for
publishing in open access journals, up to an initial limit of US$3000
per investigator per year. On the other side of the Atlantic
the Wellcome Trust, the UK's leading biomedical research charity,
issued a position
statement in support of open access.
The Public Library of Science launched
PLoS Biology and there is a new series of open access journals from the
University of California. The Company
of Biologists, publisher of Development, and Oxford
University Press both announced that they will be experimenting with
open access.
Two important statements of principle have been issued that offer strong
support to open access – the
Bethesda Principles and the Berlin
Declaration.
Talking about a revolution
Open access advocates are helping to bring about a revolution
in biomedical publishing. You can play your part by spreading the word
about the benefits of open access. Our advocacy
pages contain a wealth of resources to help, including some fantastic
new posters. We also now have author
profiles available on our website. Use the comments from our authors,
about their experiences of publishing with BioMed Central, to convince
researchers in your faculty to publish in open access journals.
|
