FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Candi Clevenger, Communications Manager, (614) 728-3600 ext. 329 or
candi@ohiolink.edu.
COLUMBUS (November 11, 2003)—The Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK), a consortium of Ohio’s college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio, has invested in BioMed Central institutional membership for 84 institutions in the state. The OhioLINK membership is the single-largest consortium deal BioMed Central has secured in the U.S. to date.
Now all articles from faculty at OhioLINK institutions, whose work is accepted for publication in BioMed Central’s open access journals, will be freely available to the world. Open access journals—in contrast to traditional subscription-based journals where only those who can afford a subscription can access content—charge authors to publish and then offer the content free to readers.
OhioLINK was motivated to invest in BioMed Central membership because of current budget constraints on both their member libraries and the OhioLINK central budget. The combination of financial constraints and the continued rising costs of journal subscriptions stimulated the need to seek out alternative publishing models.
Tom Sanville, Executive Director of OhioLINK, explains the commitment by OhioLINK to fund open access publishing for all 84 member institutions:
“We need economically sustainable access to quality research. We want to give our faculty the opportunity to publish through the most cost effective means possible, while simultaneously maximizing access to their research. We hope the open access model will extend to other disciplines.”
The OhioLINK membership allows faculty to reap all the benefits of publishing research articles in any of BioMed Central’s 100+ open-access journals, without paying separate article processing charges.
In addition, OhioLINK will host BioMed Central journal content in its Electronic Journal Center (EJC). The EJC, launched in 1998, is “one of the largest collections of electronic journals run by a library consortium,” says Sanville. The EJC will allow users to quickly access the BioMed Central open access research from this local resource and BioMed Central research will gain increased visibility by being included - more than 3.7 million articles are downloaded each year by OhioLINK users.
“The OhioLINK membership is a huge boost to BioMed Central, and to the drive to provide open access to all biomedical research,” Natasha Robshaw, Head of Marketing at BioMed Central, commented. “We hope that this move by such an influential consortium will encourage other library groups to come on board and promote open access.”
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The Ohio Library and Information Network, OhioLINK, is a consortium of academic libraries that serves more than 600,000 students, faculty, and staff at 84 institutions. OhioLINK's membership includes 17 public universities, 23 community/technical colleges, 43 private colleges and the State Library of Ohio.
OhioLINK.s goal is to provide easy access to information and rapid delivery of library materials throughout the state. OhioLINK offers integrated local and central catalogs, an online borrowing system, 100+ research databases including full-text resources, a multi-publisher e-journal collection of more than 4.3 million articles, a digital media collection, and document delivery services. For more information about OhioLINK, visit www.ohiolink.edu.
BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science. In addition to open-access original research, BioMed Central also publishes reviews and other subscription-based content.
BioMed Central's business model is based on charging authors to publish, and then making the content free to readers. Under the agreement, article-processing charges are waived - for all member institution staff - for publication in any of BioMed Central's 100 peer-reviewed journals. Upon acceptance, the article becomes available online without charge to readers worldwide. Hundreds of researchers from U.S. institutions have already published in BioMed Central journals.
For more information about BioMed Central, contact:
Natasha Robshaw
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 0323
Fax: +44 (0)20 7580 1938
E-mail: press@biomedcentral.com
Website: http://www.biomedcentral.com