News science journals to provide ``open access''
Wednesday December 18, 2002SAN 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.''
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