PLOS Biology

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7430.56-a

BMJ 2004;328:56 (3 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7430.56-a

reviews

Journal

PLOS Biology

An open access online journal from the Public Library of Science;first issue October 2003

ISSN 1544 9173 www.plosbiology.org

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The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

What an extraordinary time it is in scientific and medical publishing.These pages and many others have documented the increasing tensionbetween traditional publishers and their audience in recentyears. The essence of the problem is that readers have becomedependent on easy-to-search, universally accessible electronicarchives, which are owned by publishers, unlike old printedcopies. If institutions stop current subscriptions, they alsolose access to old issues. Publishers therefore seem to be freeto charge what they like for access—and there is a perceptionthat some are exploiting this position to the limit. Large profitsfrom the publication of scientific journals have been reported.

Brave new publishing world: the printjournal and, below, the online version

Several initiatives to break out from this have involved establishinga different model of publishing, in which there is no chargefor access to published papers. Instead, authors or their hostinstitutions are . . . [Full text of this article]

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Neil Turner, professor of nephrology

Renal and Autoimmunity Group, Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh, and Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh neil.turner@ed.ac.uk