For immediate release January 14, 2004
For more information, contact: Helen Doyle, Public Library of Science, +1 415.624.1217, hdo...@plos.org or see http://www.plos.org/support. NEW CHANNEL OF SUPPORT FOR OPEN-ACCESS PUBLISHING Public Library of Science Announces Launch of Institutional Memberships January 14, 2004 San Francisco, CA. The movement for free online access to scientific and medical literature was bolstered earlier this month when the Public Library of Science [PLoS], a non-profit advocacy organization and open-access publisher, began offering Institutional Memberships. The announcement followed the October launch of PLoS Biology, the organization's flagship scientific journal, which is available on the Internet at no charge. Open-access publishers such as PLoS rely on revenue streams other than subscription and site-license fees to recover their costs. In lieu of asking readers to pay for access to PLoS Biology, PLoS requests a $1500 charge for publication in the journal, which is often paid from an author's research grant -- but which can now be largely offset by funds from other sources within the author's institution. "Institutional memberships," says Dr. Helen Doyle, PLoS Director of Development and Strategic Alliances, "are one way to provide an incentive for scientists in less well-funded disciplines, as well as those in developing countries, to publish in open-access journals." The memberships, which are available to universities, libraries, funders of research, and other organizations, offer sizable discounts on publication fees for affiliated authors--meaning that a scholarly institution, private foundation, or corporation could substantially reduce any financial barrier to publishing in PLoS Biology that its researchers faced. Skeptics of the long-term viability of open-access publishing have argued that publication charges may be more palatable for scientists in the relatively well-funded disciplines of biomedical research than for those in fields like ecology, where grants tend to be substantially smaller. "We already waive all fees for any authors who say they can't afford them," Doyle adds, "but we hope that Institutional Memberships will help assuage the concern that open access journals are unsustainable in fields with less funding." In biomedicine, publication charges are estimated to account for approximately one to two percent of the cost of research. Another open-access publisher, the United Kingdom-based BioMed Central, already offers an Institutional Membership program, and to date has an active roster of more than 300 institutions in 32 countries. ####################################