News science journals to provide ``open access''
Wednesday December 18, 2002
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) People will soon have access to academic
publishing on the Internet for free if a nonprofit venture to start
two new scientific journals is successful.
The initiative, called the Public Library of Science, is backed
by Nobel Laureates and a $9 million startup grant. Leaders
announced the plan Tuesday with a promise to make all the content
freely available online.
They said their goal is to create a new standard of ``open
access'' in academic publishing. Academic journals historically
have hefty subscriber fees the cost of a yearly subscription for
most of the leading journals is hundreds or even thousands of
dollars. And for those who don't have a subscription, online access
is limited.
``Our intention is to do something that fundamentally changes
the way scientific research is communicated,'' said Patrick Brown,
a Stanford University biochemist and one of the enterprise's
primary supporters. ``We want to establish a completely different
business model for scientific publication.''
A taxpayer who helps to finance cancer research, and then gets
cancer, should not have to pay twice for the right to read
cutting-edge findings about his or her disease, Brown said.
The two journals, PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine, intend to
begin publishing online in the second half of 2003. The journals
plan to cover costs with a pay-to-publish fee, charging scientists
$1,500 per paper, although discounts will be available.
The grant was made by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in
San Francisco, which was established by the Intel co-founder and
his spouse.
The board of directors is headed by Dr. Harold Varmus, president
of the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and
co-winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science magazine, a
subscription journal of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, wished the new enterprise well, and called
it ``a very interesting experiment.''
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)