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Open access developments
Open access continues its rapid growth, and is gaining support from funders and national policy advisers. Arthur Carty, the Canadian National Science Advisor, recently published an article in University Affairs showing strong support for open access. In the article, Carty writes:
"We have to find ways to motivate researchers in all countries to preserve and exchange their research data, to publish their findings in open access journals and to deposit their published articles in institutional repositories. [...] Institutions, too, need to know that their investments in expanding and improving the quality of their data archives and open-access repositories are recognized as measurable scientific outputs."
BioMed Central has 25 member institutions in Canada. Canadian researchers and institutions have always been supporters of BioMed Central and BioMed Central welcomes this further support.
In other developments, the Wellcome Trust policy on open access to the research it funds came into effect on the 1st October 2005. Wellcome is the first scientific research funder to insist that articles that result from research it funds are placed in an open access repository.
The Wellcome Trust has stated that as part of its policy it will also "provide grantees with additional funding to cover the costs of page processing charges levied by open access publishers, such as the Public Library of Science and BioMed Central." For more information on the Wellcome Trust's policy, please visit their website.
Research Councils UK (RCUK) is expected to issue a final version of its position statement on access to research soon. The draft position statement is available on their website.
The draft statement proposes that RCUK will require that all research articles arising from Council-funded work should be deposited in open access repositories. It also confirms that the cost of publishing in open access journals such as those published by BioMed Central can be included in grant applications to the research councils.
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Consortium news
BioMed Central is pleased to announce that NHS England have renewed their BioMed Central membership agreement until March 2008. Under the renewed membership agreement all 1.4 million NHS England staff can continue to publish their work in BioMed Central's growing number of open access journals without incurring a direct article processing charge.
We are also delighted to report that the CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians) consortium has renewed memberships and subscription products for 20 universities in Australia.
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NEW LAUNCH:
Faculty of 1000 Medicine
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Faculty of 1000 Medicine (www.f1000medicine.com), the sister-service to the award-winning Faculty of 1000 Biology, will be launching in January 2006.
This online literature awareness service will draw upon the authority and experience of over 2000 of the world's leading researchers and clinicians to highlight and evaluate the most important papers published in the medical sciences, making this an invaluable tool for doctors and medical researchers.
Organized into 18 Faculties covering the whole of medicine, Faculty of 1000 Medicine helps users find the most important papers amongst the mass of literature. The prestigious, international Advisory Board oversees the service and includes Steven Hyman of Harvard University, Judith Swain of Stanford University and Hans Wigzell of the Karolinska Institute.
Faculty of 1000 Medicine is a user-friendly service, offering features to navigate and highlight the content of most relevance and importance to each individual user, such as easy browsing, regular email alerts, Top 10 lists of the best papers, most popular and all-time classic papers, and our selection of Hidden Jewels - the most popular papers from less-obvious journals.
For more information on how Faculty of 1000 Medicine can help your library's users, or to find out how you can set up a FREE 30-day trial at your institution, please contact your Sales Representative.
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Springer Science + Business Media acquires Current Medicine
As you may have already heard, Springer Science + Business Media has recently acquired Current Medicine Group, publisher of the Current Reports journals, Current Treatment Options journals and images.MD. BioMed Central's customer service and sales team will continue to service all sales and customer support needs for these products up until January 1st 2006, at which point the team at Current Medicine LLC will take over (please find their contact information below).
We are confident that customers will be in good hands from January 2006, and will be working with Current Medicine to ensure a smooth handover. If, in the meantime, you have any queries regarding this change or any Current Medicine products, please don't hesitate to contact us through the Customer Services team here at BioMed Central, or via your sales representative.
Current Medicine LLC
Customer Services Dept.
400 Market Street
Suite 700
Philadelphia
PA 19106, USA
Tel: +1 215 574 2266
Fax: +1 215 574 2225
Email: info@phl.cursci.com
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Open Repository news
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Deciding how to build and host an institutional repository and who to partner with can be a major challenge for institutions. Choosing to have a free pilot repository for 3 months, set up by Open Repository, allows institutions to see what this unique service can offer.
Increasing numbers of institutions are taking advantage of this opportunity including University of Liverpool, King's College London, Ospedale Niguarda, University of Connecticut and many more. If you would like to trial a pilot repository at your institution, please contact Marie Martens.
To stay up-to-date with Open Repository news and developments, please sign up for Open Repository's updates.
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Sales Contacts
Canada, Europe, Asia and Australasia
Marianne Josserand
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7631 9990
E-mail: marianne@biomedcentral.com
Eastern and Southern United States and Italy
Maria Romano
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7631 9971
E-mail: maria.romano@biomedcentral.com
Western and Central United States, Caribbean, Germany, Austria, UK and Ireland
Dominic Tate
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7631 9947
E-mail: dominic.tate@biomedcentral.com
Open Repository Sales Contact
Marie Martens
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7631 9952
E-mail: marie.martens@biomedcentral.com
Renewal Sales Contact
Eleanor Lee
Phone: +44 (0) 207 631 9173
E-mail: eleanor@biomedcentral.com
Don't forget to promote your BioMed Central subscriptions!
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 Services team.
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BioMed Central's new membership models
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BioMed Central's current institutional membership programme is ending this month and will be replaced by two new membership models to better suit library needs- Prepay and Supporters Membership:
Prepay Membership is an advanced payment system whereby customers pay upfront for a number of articles to be processed and published. Upon publication, the full Article Processing Charge for the BioMed Central journal in question, minus the discount that applies, will be deducted from the account. The higher the amount paid in advance, the greater the discount given.
Supporters Membership allows libraries to support their researchers and open access. Members pay a flat rate annual membership fee based on the number of biological and medical researchers and graduate students at their institution. Members of the institution are then given a 15% discount on the Article Processing Charge when publishing in BioMed Central's journals.
If you would like further information about these models, please contact your sales representative or visit our membership page.
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Journals published by BioMed Central accepted by ISI and MEDLINE
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Six more journals published by BioMed Central have been accepted for tracking by The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). BMC Developmental Biology, BMC Immunology, BMC Neurology, BMC Plant Biology, BMC Structural Biology and Journal of Translational Medicine are now included in the Science Citation Index Expanded, available through the Web of Science, and will receive an impact factor in 2008.
ISI now tracks 30 journals published by BioMed Central. A full list is available on our website.
We are also pleased to announce that five more journals published by BioMed Central have recently been accepted into MEDLINE, the selective indexing service run by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Cardiovascular Diabetology, Cardiovascular Ultrasound, Lipids in Health and Disease, Nutrition Journal and Retrovirology. MEDLINE now indexes 61 journals published by BioMed Central. A full list is available on the indexing page of our website.
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Catalogue your journals
Help your researchers to make the most of open access by cataloguing all of our journals, including the high-quality Journal of Biology, which as of 2006 will become an online-only journal.
In the last 3 months, we have launched 2 new journals as part of our innovative 'Independent Journals Program':
 
 
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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