David Akin's On the Hill :: Public Library of Science launches using open-access publishing

Gemini Award-winning reporter David Akin is the National Affairs Correspondent for Canwest News Service and is based at the CNS Parliamentary Bureau in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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Public Library of Science launches using open-access publishing

by DavidAkin on Thu 21 Oct 2004 11:24 PM EDT | Permanent Link | Cosmos

I was tipped off today to the Public Library of Science, which, this week, launched a new peer-reviewed medical journal. Why is this important? This journal, unlike most academic journals, is available online to anyone who wants to read it -- for free. This is called the Open Access model of academic publishing. Before Open Access, you normally had to go to an academic library if you wanted to read a journal or pay hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to subscribe to the journal.
I like the idea of Open Access academic publishing because it aids the dissemination of discovery and research and that can only be a good thing. Here's what the Public Library of Science people had to say in their press release:

A new general medical journal launched this week with a non-traditional publishing model is the latest top-tier venue for publishing important,peer-reviewed biomedical research, and is being called the first major, international journal to be
introduced in more than 70 years. Unlike most medical journals which are available only through costly subscriptions, PLoS Medicine is available free of charge and accessible to everyone through the Internet, at plosmedicine.org. PLoS Medicine is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a coalition of researchers and physicians founded in 2000 by Nobel Prize winner and former National Institutes of Health Director Harold Varmus, M.D.

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