Frequently Asked Questions

1. What part of BioMed Central journals' content is free, and what part do I have to pay a subscription fee for?

2. How long will the research papers from the journals be digitally archived, and where?

3. How are BioMed Central's institutional site license prices calculated?

4. I am interested in obtaining a number of BioMed Central products for my institution - can I get a package deal?

5. Will we be entitled to reproduce and distribute licensed electronic content?

6. Will we receive a print copy of the journal?

7. How is access to BioMed Central's online products controlled?

8. Can I get institutional usage statistics for my institution?

9. Can I find BioMed Central at Library Meetings and conferences?

10. Do you offer online consortia deals?

11. Do you charge tax on BioMed Central subscription products?

1. What part of BioMed Central journals' content is free, and what part do I have to pay a subscription fee for?

BioMed Central is committed to providing free access to original research papers. For this reason, all the research papers published in any of our journals are free for anyone to view, download, and further disseminate in full text or PDF format. Access to the value-added content (such as review articles, commentary articles, web reports, image databases and evaluation services) is not free, and this is the content for which we make a subscription charge.

2. How long will the research papers from the journals be digitally archived, and where?

All research articles published by BioMed Central are archived in full and without delay at PubMed Central, and are also included in PubMed. BioMed Central deposits its entire collection of published research articles also in other open digital repositories including INIST in France, The University of Potsdam in Germany, and the Royal Library in The Netherlands. From these, and any other open repositories in which these articles are archived, they are available electronically at no cost and without access restrictions. We support non-exclusive digital archiving of research articles by as many international archives as possible, to ensure the security and permanent accessibility of that research.

BioMed Central satisfies the wish of many research funding organizations, among which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US (see its policy), the Wellcome Trust, and The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.

3. How are BioMed Central's institutional site license prices calculated?

We calculate the prices of institutional site licenses to our subscription products by looking at the FTE count of the relevant department/s within an institution. For more information on this, please look at our pricing structure page.

4. I am interested in obtaining a number of BioMed Central products for my institution - can I get a package deal?

Please contact your sales representative to find out about discounts for purchasing multiple products from BioMed Central.

5. Will we be entitled to reproduce and distribute licensed electronic content?

Content which is licensed to an institution is only available to that institution, its members and official affiliates.

The BioMed Central Licence Agreement stipulates that: "Authorised Users are allowed to print and/or download individual articles and other individual items from searches of the Licensed Material for research, teaching and private study purposes"; and:
"A licensed institution is allowed to fulfil requests for a single paper copy of an electronic original of an individual document being part of the Licensed Materials, from an other institutional library within the same country as the Licensee, a practice commonly known as Interlibrary Loan, whether by post or fax, or by secure transmission, using Ariel or its equivalent, whereby the electronic file is deleted immediately after printing, for the purposes of research or private study and not for Commercial Use."

6. Will we receive a print copy of the journal?

An institutional online subscription to our review and research journals comes with a free print edition. For more information about these, see our product information pages. BioMed Central's Original Research Journals are available digitally and in PDF format, and a hard copy archive will be published annually and made available on demand. For more information about this, please contact us.

7. How is access to BioMed Central's online products controlled?

Institutional access to all subscription-based content (i.e. not the Open Access original research papers) is controlled by IP authorization. This provides seamless access to all content and does away with the need for usernames and passwords.

8. Can I get institutional usage statistics for my institution?

The institutional administrator for BioMed Central at your institution will be sent monthly email alerts of your online usage statistics for the products that you are subscribing to or trailing. However, your administrator can also access this information at any time. They simply need to go to www.biomedcentral.com and log in or register, then click on the 'My BioMed Central' link in the top menu bar and select 'My Subscriptions' from the left-hand menu bar. Finally, click on the link to your institution to view all relevant usage statistics.

If you would like to change the contact that we have as your institutional administrator for BioMed Central them please contact us with this request via institutions@biomedcentral.com.

9. Can I find BioMed Central at Library Meetings and conferences?

We attend many conferences throughout the year. See our Exhibition Schedule for details of where to find us - we would be delighted to meet you!

10. Do you offer online consortia deals?

We are happy to deal with consortia on a regional and national level. Please get in touch with our Consortia Sales representative for more information.

11. Do you charge tax on BioMed Central subscription products?

Taxation on our subscription products is as follows:

Customers in EU countries must pay VAT or EU Sales Tax at 17.5% on all online-only products. If the customer supplies a VAT or Tax Exempt number, then tax will not be charged.

Canadian customers pay General Sales Tax (GST) at 7% on all products, print included.

For further FAQs about BioMed Central's open access policy and publications, please refer to the FAQ Section on the BioMed Central Homepage