Jan Velterop and Springer

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:31:38 +0100

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:08:26 +0100
From: Jan Velterop <openaccess_at_btinternet.com>

Dear friends and colleagues,

You may already have seen the announcement below, but just in case you
haven't, I thought you might find it interesting. Not so much with
regard to what's happening to me, but with regard to the direction in
which the second largest science publisher is moving.

Best wishes,

Jan Velterop
----------
Press Release

Springer strengthens its commitment to freely accessible research
literature

Jan Velterop to help expand Open Choice
London / New York / Berlin / Heidelberg, August 16, 2005

Springer has strengthened its commitment to innovation and customer
choice by appointing Jan Velterop to the newly created position of
Director of Open Access.

In July 2004 Springer launched ^ÓSpringer Open Choice^Ô a pioneering
project which provides an additional publication option to the
traditional subscription model. Authors can choose to make their
articles freely available worldwide on the Internet, for a fee of 3,000
US dollars. Open Choice is a further development of the Open Access
concept which is supported by a section of the scientific community.

Velterop is one of the most prominent figures of the Open Access
movement. He will be joining the company from BioMedCentral, an
established Open Access biomedical research publisher, where he was
Publishing Director.

Derk Haank, Springer^Òs CEO, comments: ^ÓSpringer Open Choice has attracted
constant attention within the publishing world since its launch.
Springer is the first major commercial publisher to provide an Open
Access model, making it a pioneer in the industry. We are now taking
a further step forward. The appointment of Jan Velterop creates an
internal champion for this second component of our publishing policy,
making sure Open Access gets the required attention both internally
and externally^Ô.

^ÓI am firmly convinced that Open Access publishing represents a powerful
way to meet the needs of many authors and readers. It therefore fits
in ideally with Springer^Òs growth strategy^Ô, adds Jan Velterop.

^ÓOpen Choice^Ô is an additional publication model which Springer provides
for all its 1,250 journals. Consequently, authors can now make their
articles available to readers free of charge on the Internet, or publish
within the traditional subscription model, where readers pay for the
information they use. Open Choice articles are freely accessible for no
charge to anyone, at any time, anywhere in the world via SpringerLink,
the publisher^Òs online service. The 3000 US dollar fee covers the
costs of Springer^Òs publishing service ^Ö including a parallel printed
version of the article in an established journal.

Open Choice articles are identical to those published in the traditional
way. They are subject to the same strict scientific peer reviews
and also profit from the publisher^Òs full service ^Ö from professional
editing, production, and printing to distribution via established global
sales channels. Springer also links the articles to all reference
systems generally used in international electronic publishing, and
provides indexing and abstract services. Both printed and electronic
articles remain subject to full copyright protection.

For enquiries, please contact:

Sabine Schaub, Springer Science+Business Media, tel: +49 (0)30 / 827
87- 52 82, sabine.schaub_at_springer-sbm.com
Received on Tue Aug 16 2005 - 13:40:12 BST