Below is a welcome press release from BioMed Central announcing a new
service to help institutions create create OAI-compliant OA Archives.
Pertinent Prior Amsci Topic Threads:
"Ingenta to offer OAI eprint service"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2108.html
"EPrints, DSpace or ESpace?"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2670.html
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PRESS RELEASE: 13 September 2004
BioMed Central launches repository service for institutions
BioMed Central, the Open Access Publisher, today launched a repository
service for universities and research institutions. Open Repository has been
conceived in direct response to demand in the market.
The UK House of Commons Science & Technology Committee report 'Scientific
Publications: Free for all?*' and The U.S. House Appropriations Committee
draft report, concerning NIH-funded research, are two of the strongest calls
for mandating Open Access to the published results of publicly funded
research. Around the world there are increasing moves towards Open Access by
government and funding bodies, meaning that institutional repositories are
fast becoming a necessity.
Open Repository offers professional help to institutions to quickly
and easily build, launch, maintain, and populate their institutional
repositories. The service has been designed to be flexible and
cost-effective. The Open Repository service makes it possible
for institutions that could not otherwise afford to, or lack the
infrastructure or technical capacity in-house, to set up repositories.
Jan Velterop, Publisher and Director of BioMed Central explains why Open
Repository is being launched,
"Institutional repositories have great potential for opening up the
scientific literature. Their potential, however, will only be fully
realised if those repositories are set up well and in such a way that
their content is truly freely accessible, which involves adherence to
established formatting and metadata standards as well as linking to,
and embedding in, the worldwide network of science literature. We already
do this for our own journals."
Open Repository offers a number of different levels of service, to
fit with a university or institution's requirements. For a one-off
set-up fee, BioMed Central will build the repository with open
source software D-Space, with complete customization to the customer's
requirements. Repositories built under the scheme will be able to accept
a wide variety of publication types. It is then up to the institution
whether they wish BioMed Central to host and run the repository or to
transfer operation and maintenance to themselves. The institution remains
the owner of the repository.
For an annual fee, BioMed Central offers to maintain the repository and
guarantee ongoing customer support. BioMed Central's Open Repository
service will include converting articles to PDF and XML. Advanced search
functionality will be a part of the service, as will links to and from
databases, for example PubMed, and via CrossRef to the body of scientific
literature.
Velterop continues,
"BioMed Central is uniquely placed to offer this service, given the
company's extensive experience and expertise in successfully building and
running its Open Access publishing platform, which is in effect a highly
complex implementation of a repository. At BioMed Central we see Open
Repository as complementary to our fast-growing stable of Open Access
journals, currently 110 titles, in accelerating the widespread availability
of Open Access to research results."
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Press Office Contacts:
Grace Baynes for BioMed Central
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
E-mail: press_at_biomedcentral.com
About BioMed Central
BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com/) is an independent online publishing
house committed to providing immediate access without charge to the
peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment
is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid
and efficient communication of science. In addition to open-access original
research, BioMed Central also publishes reviews and other subscription-based
content.
*The Science and Technology Committee, Tenth Report of Session 2003-04,
Scientific Publications: Free for all? (HC 399-I).
Extract from the report:
The UK House of Commons Report recommended that "the requirement for
universities to disseminate their research as widely as possible be written
into their charters. In addition, SHERPA should be funded by DfES to allow
it to make grants available to all research institutions for the
establishment and maintenance of repositories." (Recommendation 43) Further,
the Committee said "We recommend that the Research Councils and other
Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all
their articles in their institution's repository within one month of
publication or a reasonable period to be agreed following publication, as a
condition of their research grant." (Recommendation 44)
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39914.htm
Grace Baynes
Marketing Communications Manager
BioMed Central
Middlesex House
34-42 Cleveland Street
London W1T 4LB
T: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
F: +44 (0)20 7580 1938
http://www.biomedcentral.com/
Received on Mon Sep 13 2004 - 15:35:34 BST