---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 02:54:56 -0800
From: Public Library of Science Initiative <update_at_publiclibraryofscience.org>
Reply-To: feedback_at_publiclibraryofscience.org
To: STEVAN HARNAD <HARNAD_at_coglit.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: News from Public Library of Science
We are writing to you and 31,000 other colleagues who signed the
Public Library of Science open letter, to share some exciting news:
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded a $9 million grant
to the Public Library of Science to enable us to launch new journals
that will allow scientists to make their works freely and universally
available from the moment of publication through international,
online "public libraries of science", without sacrificing the
recognition and audience that a reputable journal can provide.
PLoS will begin by publishing two journals - PLoS Biology and PLoS
Medicine - that will retain all of the important features of
scientific journals, including rigorous peer-review and high
editorial standards, but will use a new business model in which the
costs of these services are recovered by modest fees on each
published paper. This new model will allow PLoS to make all published
works immediately available online, with no charges for access or
restrictions on subsequent redistribution or use.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US has strongly endorsed
this concept by by offering to cover the costs of open access
publication by means of a budget supplement to each of its
investigators. Several universities have recognized the tremendous
value of open access publishing to the scientific and academic
communities (as well as long term financial savings of this model)
and have taken similar steps by providing funds from library budgets
to support open access publishing. We are confident that other
funding agencies and research institutions will similarly endorse the
idea of using grant money and institutional funds to cover modest
authors' fees.
We have also taken steps to ensure that authors who do not have
access to grant funds or institutional support that allow them to pay
publication fees will still be able to publish their work in our
journals.
We have begun putting together a superlative professional editorial
staff, and assembling a diverse, international editorial advisory
board of outstanding scientists who share our goals. We are aiming to
begin receiving submissions by summer 2003, and to begin publishing
in the second half of 2003.
You can find more information about this new initiative at:
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org (please bookmark it!).
Thanks for your continued support.
Harold E. Varmus
Patrick O. Brown
Michael B. Eisen
for Public Library of Science
Received on Tue Dec 17 2002 - 11:30:32 GMT