Committed to making the worlds

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Committed to making the worlds scientific and
medical literature a public resource
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Outline of presentation

• Background
• Challenges
• Status report
• Future plans

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The journals crisis
Journal prices
CPI/inflation
Journals purchased
Source Association of Research Libraries
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The promise of open access

• Maximum impact for authors
• access to the largest possible audience
• New ways to access and use literature
• full-text searching and mining
• Greatly expanded access to research
• for scientists, educators, physicians, the
  public

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PLoS Founding Board of Directors
Harold Varmus PLoS Co-founder and Chairman of the
Board President and CEO of Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Patrick O. Brown PLoS Co-founder and Board
Member Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Stanford University School of Medicine
Michael B. Eisen PLoS Co-founder and Board
Member Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
University of California at Berkeley
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What is open access?

• Free access
• Unrestricted use
• Author retains the right to be acknowledged
• Papers are deposited in a public database
• eg PubMed Central

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Subscription journals
Researcher

Publisher
Reader
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Open access
Researcher
Publishing is the final step in a research project

Publisher
Reader
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Transition state economics
Open access
Subscription- based
?
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Catalysts for change

• Open access journals - BMC, PLoS
• Experimentation amongst publishers - ESA, OUP,
  APS, COB
• Policy change in funding agencies - HHMI,
  Wellcome Trust, Berlin Declaration
• Other organizations - SPARC, JISC
• Institutions, libraries
• Pioneer authors

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Publishing strategy

• Launch two high quality open access journals to
  rival existing top tier journals.
• PLoS Biology - October, 2003
• PLoS Medicine - 2004
• Launch specialist open access journals
• Inspire other organizations to do the same

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Basic information

• All the qualities of a top-tier journal
• Online journal has primacy
• Print subscription at cost
• Monthly issues
• Publication charge 1500
• Primary research plus commentary

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Where are we now?

• Launch Oct 13
• Extensive press coverage
• High volume traffic
• www.plosbiology.org

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Long-term goals

• Economic sustainability
• Development of tools/resources
• Open access becoming the favoured mode of
  publishing

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Open Access and Developing Nations

• Access to knowledge
• Improved impact
• But
• Connectivity/bandwidth
• Author charges

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Conclusions

• PLoS is
• driven by the scientific community
• an open access publisher
• a research organization
• an agent of change

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Make PLoS journals the journals youve always
wanted

• Authors submit your next great paper to PLoS
  Biology
• Reviewers provide prompt constructive reviews
• Tell us how you want your journals to look and
  operate
• Be an open access/PLoS advocate
• Tell your colleagues about PLoS
• Sign up for PLoS alerts at our web site

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Developing a sustainable operation

• Flagship journals
• journal growth, author charge, advertising,
  sponsorship, costs
• Increase volume
• new titles, database style journals
• Lobbying
• Transitional measures
• membership scheme, grants

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Kofi Annan - Challenge to Scientists

• the way in which scientific endeavours are
  pursued around the world is marked by clear
  inequalities.
• This unbalanced distribution of scientific
  activity generates serious problems not only for
  the scientific community in the developing
  countries, but for development itself
• your advocacy can bring about a breakthrough to
  scientific knowledge
• Science, March, 2003

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PLoS a brief history

• Founded in October, 2000
• Circulated an open letter urging publishers to
  increase access to research literature
• gt30,000 signatories
• Some positive effects, but overall response from
  publishers fell short of demands
• In December, 2002, 9million grant from Moore
  Foundation to launch open access journals.

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Barriers to open access

• Publishers - commercial success
• Societies - publishing supports them
• Authors - submitting to a new journal
• Funding agencies - dont fund publishing
• Libraries - funding uncertainties

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Editorial Staff
Vivian Siegel PLoS Executive Director Formerly
Editor of Cell
Catriona MacCallum PLoS Senior Editor Formerly
Editor of Trends in Ecology Evolution
Philip Bernstein PLoS Senior Editor Formerly
Executive Editor of Journal of Experimental
Medicine
Hemai Parthasarathy PLoS Senior Editor Formerly
Senior Editor at Nature
Barbara Cohen PLoS Senior Editor Formerly
Executive Editor of Journal of Clinical
Investigation
Mark Patterson PLoS Senior Editor Formerly
Publisher for Company of Biologists
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Editorial aims and scope

• The best life science research
• from molecules to ecosystems.
• Outstanding service to authors
• editorial board members working with
• professional editors from start to end.
• Accessibility and relevance
• synopses, opinion and commentary.

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Priorities

• Maintain standard in PLoS Biology
• Launch PLoS Medicine next year
• Plan launch of specialist titles
• Establish collaborations to convert/launch OA
  journals

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The Berlin Declaration

• the Internet now offers the chance to
  constitute a global and interactive
  representation of human knowledge, including
  cultural heritage and the guarantee of worldwide
  access.
• New possibilities of knowledge dissemination not
  only through the classical form but also and
  increasingly through the open access paradigm via
  the Internet have to be supported.
• Signatories All major funders in Germany
• CNRS, INSERM, and others