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In this issue:
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Open Access Developments
The Open Access movement has made huge steps forward in recent
months.
The UK
House of Commons Science & Technology Committee published
their report
on scientific publishing in July. The Committee said that
changes in scientific publishing are "necessary as a matter
of urgency" and everyone should have free, Open Access to
UK research findings. To find out more read our press
release, or visit our inquiry
web feature.
The Science & Technology Committee's report was published
just as a US House of
Representatives committee recommended that research funded
by National Institutes of Health (NIH) should be freely available.
The NIH have since announced a
60-day consultation and encouraged
feedback.
The European Commission recently launched
a study to investigate the journal publishing system for European
research. In Brazil, participants at the Second Simposio Internaciaonal
Bibliotecas Digitais announced their strong
support for the Berlin Declaration on Open Access. In Australia
this year, the Group of Eight vice-chancellors, representing Australia's
pre-eminent research universities, issued a statement confirming
their commitment to Open Access.
Consortium Membership Deals
Interest in our BioMed Central membership programme continues
to grow. In April FinELib
joined BioMed Central. This is our first national deal whereby all publicly
funded researchers in Finland, including all universities and research institutes,
can publish in any BioMed Central journal without incurring the usual article-processing
charge. Since then we have signed up numerous consortia members including:
Oberlin -
23 liberal arts colleges in the Oberlin Group across the United
States
University System
of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions (USMAI) - 14 universities
and 16 libraries in the state of Maryland, USA
The Public Health
System of Asturias (Consejeria de Salud y Servicios Sanitarios) – 7
hospitals in Asturias, an autonomous community in the north of
Spain. This is the first region in Spain to make such a major
commitment to Open Access.
BioMed Central Consultation about Open Access Payment
Model
BioMed Central recently held a consultation workshop with librarians
and funding bodies about future mechanisms for funding Open Access
publishing. The meeting took place on Tuesday 31st August in London,
and included representatives from around the world. The discussion
focused on four key areas:
- Payment models for Open Access: membership/article processing
charges
- Payment mechanisms for Open Access; differences from and similarities
to subscriptions
- Role of the library and the funding body in the Open Access
world
- Collaboration between institutions/ funding bodies: can mechanisms
be found to channel funding streams via the institution/library
to pay for Open Access?
Natasha Robshaw, Head of Sales and Marketing at BioMed Central
explained: " The consultation workshop was a great success,
and we are grateful to all those that contributed. The session
allowed us to explore how to channel funds to pay for Open Access
publishing in the future - in a way that truly fits the needs of
the community."
For more information on the consultation workshop, read the press
release. The conclusions of the meeting will be published
at the end of September.
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Our 2005 Catalogue is on the Way!
The new 2005 BioMed Central catalogue has just been sent out
to all of our librarians. Should you need any further copies simply
let us know at institutions@biomedcentral.com
Look out for your copy in the post!
Latest Journals in MEDLINE
MEDLINE have
accepted six more journals published by BioMed Central for indexing: BMC
Clinical Pharmacology; BMC
Ecology; BMC
Ophthalmology; BioMedical
Engineering OnLine ; Journal
of Biology and Molecular
Cancer.
Sales Representatives
UK & Europe, Asia Pacific and all other regions
Marianne
Josserand
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9990
Marianne@biomedcentral.com
Germany, Austria, Italy, Eastern Europe & Southern and Eastern
USA
Silvia
Serra
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9971 Silvia@biomedcentral.com
The Americas, Spain & Portugal
Mark Bevan
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9947
Mark.Bevan@biomedcentral.com
Worldwide Renewals
Rosalind Arrowsmith-Brown
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9173
Rosalind@biomedcentral.com
To see photographs of the team please visit our Sales
Contacts page.
Don't forget to promote your BioMed Central Membership!
Our
Resource Center for Librarians continues to supply librarians
with all the materials they need to promote their BioMed Central
membership and 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. If you require additional assistance with promotion,
please do not hesitate to contact our Customer
Service team.
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 Renewals Executive
We are delighted to announce that Rosalind Arrowsmith-Brown will now
be responsible for the renewal of all BioMed Central Institutional Memberships
and library subscriptions.
For all queries regarding your institution's
renewals please contact Rosalind.
Rosalind Arrowsmith-Brown
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9173
Rosalind@biomedcentral.com
| Introducing Open Repository |
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We are pleased to announce the launch of our repository service for
universities and research institutions. Open Repository (www.openrepository.com)
has been conceived in direct response to demand in the market.
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.
BioMed Central makes it possible for institutions that could not otherwise
afford to, or lack the infrastructure or technical capacity in-house,
to set up repositories.
Open Repository offers a number of different levels of service, to
fit with a university or organization’s requirements. BioMed
Central will build the repository with complete customization to the
customer’s requirements using open source software, DSpace. 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 maintain the repository or to transfer operation and maintenance
to themselves.
For information about this service including product features and
pricing please contact your sales
representative.
New Support Service from BioMed Central
To help our users to get the most out of our websites, we have launched Support
Knowledge Base. Support Knowledge Base provides a comprehensive guide
to BioMed Central, but also has lots of information on our sister sites including
Faculty of 1000 Biology, Current
Controlled Trials, images.MD and all of
our websites and journals. With answers to over 100 common questions, this
fully searchable database can help you find answers to what our impact factors
are, what to do if you have forgotten your password, our press release policy,
and much much more. Easy to use, you simply type in keywords and hit 'find'.
If you have a question on any aspect of BioMed Central please visit BioMed
Central's Support Knowledge
Base and type in your query.
BioMed Central Journals get new Impact Factors from ISI
Open Access journals published by BioMed Central have received impact factors
that compare well with equivalent subscription titles. The high impact factors,
all for journals that are just a few years old, prove that Open Access to research
literature achieves impact fast and makes quality articles much more widely
visible.
Arthritis Research & Therapy jumped
from 3.44 to 5.03,
propelling it to rank second in the rheumatology field in only its 5th
year of publication. Breast
Cancer Research also
increased its impact factor - moving from 2.81 to 2.93, placing it on
even footing with its direct competitor, Breast Cancer Research & Treatment,
which was established more than 20 years ago. Critical
Care moved
up to 6th in its field, and now has an impact factor of 1.9.
Four journals published by BioMed Central received their first impact
factors this year. Respiratory Research (5.53) comes in from
nowhere to immediately take second place in the respiratory field. Current
Controlled Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine has an impact factor
of 3.12. BMC Cell Biology (2.61) and BMC Health Services
Research (0.67) also entered well. BioMed Central saw its impact
factors go up across the board. BMC Cancer now has an impact
factor of 1.7, while BMC Infectious Diseases (1.25) and BMC
Public Health (0.93) also saw increases in their impact factors
from the 2002 Journal Citation Report.
For a full list of journals tracked by ISI and the impact factors of those
journals please visit our
website.
Conference
Attendance
BioMed Central will be attending the following conferences over the
coming weeks and months. Please contact us at institutions@biomedcentral.com for
an appointment or just drop by our booth if you are planning to attend
the event. We look forward to meeting you!
EAHIL 2004, Santander, Spain
Visit us at Booth: 25 at the 9th European Association for Health Information
and Libraries Meeting in Santander from the 20th - 25th September.
AGMB 2004, Mannheim, Germany
BioMed Central will be at Booth: 13 at the Annual Meeting of the Working
Group for Medical Libraries (AGMB) in Mannheim from the 27th - 29th September.
Frankfurt Bookfair, Germany
Visit us at Booth: 4.2 K421 at the Frankfurt Bookfair from the 6th – 10
th October.
Online Information 2004, London, UK
Online Information 2004 takes
place from 30th Nov – Dec 2nd.
BioMed Central shall be exhibiting at Booth: 287.
The Sunday Times reviews
"the brilliant Peoplesarchive.com" |
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Following its recent launch, Peoples
Archive has attracted a great deal of interest from academics,
librarians and reviewers alike. In particular, a
recent article from James Knight in The Sunday Times newspaper (UK) describes
how Peoples Archive "seizes on the new
possibilities afforded by high-speed internet access to line up a
dream team of dazzling scientific minds, all filmed in pin-sharp
video."
Knight goes on to describe the "plethora
of front-rank intellectuals talking lucidly and movingly about the
events that shaped them. Their powers of recall, often stretching
back to early childhood memories, are utterly enthralling."
With over 2000 stories from a growing number of biologists, physicists,
chemists and mathematicians, Peoples Archive provides scientists, students
and historians of science with the unprecedented opportunity to see
some of the greatest figures in science talk about their life and work
exactly as they remember it.
Contact your sales
representative to find out about how to subscribe to this highly-praised
resource.
New Independent Journals
Since the last newsletter, we have launched four new journals as part
of our innovative 'independent journals program'. BioMed
Central now publishes over 50 independent journals, and more than 110
Open Access journals in total. Recently launched journals include:
Nutrition & Metabolism
CytoJournal
Reproductive
Health
International Seminars in
Surgical Oncology
Help your researchers to make the most of Open Access by cataloguing our
journals. There are many more independent journals in development. Please sign
up here for e-mail alerts to notify you of newly launched journal title,
ISSN, URL and journal scope information.
       
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