In this issue:
|
Open Access developments
It’s been a busy time for Open Access since our September
newsletter.
In the US, the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) announced a 60-day consultation on its proposal to
enhance public access to the research it funds. When the consultation
ended on 16 November, the NIH had received over 6,000 comments.
The NIH proposes asking grantees and supported Principal Investigators
to provide the NIH with electronic copies of all final version
manuscripts, to be deposited in PubMed
Central within six months of publication. The NIH is expected
to submit a final version of their policy to the US Congress
soon.
The UK House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee
published the Government's
response to its report 'Scientific
Publications: Free for all?'. The Committee has also published its
comments on the Government's response, as well as additional
responses to the original report.
The Wellcome
Trust, the UK's largest independent funding body for biomedical
research, recently announced its plans to further open access
to the research that it funds. The Wellcome Trust sent out a letter to
all UK University vice-chancellors on 1 November 2004 and a question
and answer sheet provides more information. In Scotland,
the Scottish
Science Information Strategy Working Group released the Scottish
Declaration of Open Access.
In Italy, thirty-two universities (more than 40% of the country’s
total) gathered in Messina, Sicilia to sign the "Messina
Declaration", and committed to sign the Berlin
Declaration.
Consortium membership deals
Since our last newsletter we have signed two new national membership
agreements, whereby all publicly funded researchers within their respective
countries can publish in any BioMed Central journal without incurring
the usual article-processing charge. Our two new national members are:
Norway - The
Norwegian Health Services Research Centre (NHSRC) secured membership for all publicly funded researchers in Norway.
Denmark - The
Denmark's Electronic Research Library (DEF) secured
membership for all publicly funded researchers in Denmark.
We are also pleased to announce that two of our national consortium
customers (JISC and FinElib)
have renewed their membership agreements with BioMed Central for
2005.
If you are interested in finding out more about consortium membership
agreements and would like further information please contact your sales
representative.
Publishing partnership with The
Scientist magazine
The Scientist, which is now available by subscription, has just
launched its upgraded web site. This incorporates The Scientist
Daily, the first daily newspaper for the life sciences, along with
its 18-year archive of over 16,000 articles.
With over 600,000 users consulting its print and web editions
each month, The Scientist remains the premier source of life science
information. Content ranges from the latest research and technology
news to professional advice and regular surveys, making The
Scientist a useful and wide-reaching resource
for all life science libraries.
You can evaluate The Scientist at your institution with
a FREE 30-day trial. Simply contact your Sales
Representative for more information about pricing and the
wide range of features The Scientist has to offer. |
|
Sales Representatives
The Americas, Spain & Portugal
Mark Bevan
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9947
Mark.Bevan@biomedcentral.com
Germany, Austria, Italy, Eastern Europe & Southern and Eastern
USA
Silvia
Serra
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9971 Silvia@biomedcentral.com
UK & Europe, Asia Pacific and all other regions
Marianne Josserand
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9990
Marianne@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.
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!
ALA, Boston, USA
Visit us at the American Library Association’s 2005
Midwinter Meeting in Boston from the 14th – 19th January.
We’ll be at Booth Number 2914 where
you can also enter our free prize draw to win a year’s
subscription to The Scientist, the premier source
of life science information.
UKSG, Edinburgh, UK
We shall also be attending and sponsoring the United
Kingdom Serials Group’s 28th Annual Conference and Exhibition
in Edinburgh from the 11th – 13th April. |
| Thomson Scientific journals |
|
BioMed Central now offers the following Thomson Scientific journals
via the BioMed Central platform to both academic and corporate customers:
Current
Opinion in Drug Discovery & Development
Current
Opinion in Investigational Drugs
Current Opinion
in Molecular Therapeutics
Idrugs: The Investigational
Drugs Journal
These journals have been developed to assist scientists in managing
the wealth of scientific information that is available. By covering over
400 scientific meetings per year and providing peer-reviewed articles,
patent information and in-depth commissioned coverage of important developments
in their subject area, these journals provide a practical way of staying
on top of the latest developments both online and in print.
For a free 30-day trial and for information about these journals including
product features and pricing please contact your sales
representative.
| New technology: Firefox search
plugin and Google Scholar |
|
You may have heard of Firefox
1.0, the new open-source, cross platform browser which offers
speedy performance, 'tabbed browsing' and compliance with the latest
web standards. At BioMed Central, we've created a search
plugin to make it easier for Firefox users to search the BioMed
Central site. Find out how to install the BioMed Central search plugin here.
BioMed Central warmly welcomes Google
Scholar, a free scholarly literature search service, which offers
many of the features previously associated only with expensive subscription
products such as Web of Science. Google Scholar will offer a major
resource for scientists and academic researchers and maximises the
opportunities offered by Open Access journals and open repositories.
For more information, read
our press release.
Awards for BioMed Central products
Over the last few months both Protein Structure and Function, our
highly-illustrated print and online textbook from the Primers series, and Faculty
of 1000 Biology, the unique life science literature awareness service, have
been recognised as innovative research tools by two of the world’s best-known
library organisations.
In December Protein Structure and Function was named as an Outstanding
Academic Title by the American Library Association’s Choice journal
for its unique, modular approach. In addition, Faculty of 1000 Biology was
shortlisted in the Best STM Information Product category at the 2004 International
Information Industry Awards, held at the Online Information show in London
at the beginning of December.
For more information on these pioneering products, or to arrange a free trial,
please contact your Sales
Representative.
| Journal of
Biology in print is FREE to all
library customers |
|
To ensure that we keep the cost of publishing in Journal of Biology to
a minimum the print edition is now only available to individual customers via
a subscription ($50/$€40/£30 per annum). We are however
pleased to announce that we will send free print issues to all our
library customers who subscribe to one or more of our subscription
products and/or who are BioMed Central members. Please remember that
the entire content of the journal remains free online.
Journal of Biology is an international journal that publishes
biological research articles of exceptional interest, of a similar standard
to those found in Nature, Science and Cell,
together with associated commentary. All research articles published
in Journal of Biology, as in all other journals published by
BioMed Central, are Open Access and therefore permanently available online
free of charge and without restrictions, ensuring the widest possible
dissemination of the work.
New Independent Journals
In the last three months, we have launched 11 new journals as part of
our innovative 'Independent Journals Program'.
BioMed Central now publishes over 60 independent journals, and more
than 120 Open Access journals in total. You can help your researchers
to make the most of Open Access by cataloguing our
journals and can also sign
up for e-mail alerts to notify you of newly launched journal title,
ISSN, URL and journal scope information.
       
|
