Sharing science
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...indispensable to scientists. “I have journals going back for years on the shelves in my office,” says Vivian Siegal, executive director of a new open-access biology journal. “[But] if I need an article, I’ll get it online. It doesn’t even occur to me to read hard copies any more.”

However, just because an article is online doesn’t necessarily mean all researchers who want to read it can. Most scientists are affiliated with universities or research centers and collectively subscribe to journals through their institution’s libraries. While online subscriptions are sometimes cheaper than the expensive print format, publishers often bundle the two together, offering online subscriptions “free” to those libraries that purchase the print journals. In those circumstances, if scientists’ research institutions can’t afford the print format, then they can’t access electronic articles. This hurdle is prompting scientists to search for alternative ways to develop an open-access system, in which articles are available free, online, everywhere.

In recent years, open-access journals have made major gains in the publishing industry. The for-profit BioMed Central, a general collection of over 100 open-access journals, published its first article in 2000, with a novel pay-to-publish business model. BioMed Central makes money by charging a $1000 to $1500 processing fee to authors or their institutions and advertising aimed at researchers on its website. Also in 2000, the then-director of the National Institutes of Health, Harold Varmus, launched PubMed Central, a database in which publishers can deposit their articles six months to a year after original publication. Researchers can then access the database at no charge, while allowing traditional publishers to continue to profit. Over half of articles in medicine and health are freely available from PubMed Central, although not until well after they were initially published, which is still unsatisfactory to many researchers. In October 2003, the Public Library of Science, a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians advocating open-access scientific communication, launched its open access journal, PLoS Biology. One year later, PLoS Medicine’s first issue was published. Like BioMed Central, the PLoS journals charge a $1,500 processing fee to authors. As of October 2004, there are over 1,200 open-access peer-reviewed titles, more then twice as many as were available the year before. “It’s growing every...