It is not the aim of this presentation to give a complete overview of the subject, it is not within the scope of this « page », and anyway the space would not be enough. It is just a quick review of the major sites that allow the benefit of all the richness of this initiative in the medical field, as well as an indication of the references that are important for the subject. 

The concept of « Open access » is to “simply” ;-) allow the free exchange of ideas through scientific publishing. For a bird’s eye view of the initiative the site Open Archives Initiative (http://www.openarchives.org/) is a good start, as it contains the essential documents concerning this matter. In the medical field the initiative has been put into practice by various projects, more or less extensive. 

1.       Bioline International (http://www.bioline.org.br/) "Bioline International is a not-for-profit electronic publishing service committed to providing open access to quality research journals published in developing countries."
At present the project provides access to peer reviewed journals of Brazil, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe. The Bioline-l discussion list is a good way to keep informed regarding the new developments.

2.       BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) "BioMed Central is an independent publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research. All the original research articles in journals published by BioMed Central are immediately and permanently available online without charge or any other barriers to access. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is central to rapid and efficient progress in science and that subscription-based access to research is hindering rather than helping scientific communication". The project provides free access to the full text of more than a hundred journals indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed. It includes especially a series of journals starting with BMC, like for instance: BMC-Biomedical Digital Libraries (http://www.bio-diglib.com/), which will be published starting with this year.
Of particular interest is the information regarding the indexing and impact factor of these journals, at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/indexing. News and updates from BioMed Central may be obtained by email.

2.       DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org) "The aim of the Directory of Open Access Journals is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting their increased usage and impact". 823 journals are currently accessible full text. Medicine is well represented, including major journals in the field like Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Numerous Japanese journals published in English have thus acquired a new visibility. Spanish and Portugese journals also made an entrance in May this year. Tracing the news and updates is not very easy or clear, and seeing the chronological order of new titles introduced into DOAJ is only possible from the page New titles added the last 30 days (http://www.doaj.org/new/). This page is not dated and does not have archives, making it difficult to follow up the new titles introduced to DOAJ, which is rather a pity.

3.       Free Medical Journals (http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/) lists a number of medical journals partially or totally full access It is possible to receive news and updates by email.

4.       Highwire (http://highwire.stanford.edu/) "HighWire Press is a division of the Stanford University Libraries, which produces the online versions of high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly content. Recipient of the 2003 ALPSP Award for "Service to Not-for-Profit Publishing", HighWire partners with influential scholarly societies, university presses and publishers to create a collection of the finest, fully searchable research and clinical literature online. Together, these partners produce nearly half of the 200 most-frequently-cited journals publishing in science".
Highwire is well known especially for having published online the free back issues of prestigious journals, several of them belonging to the medical field. To this date (13 April 2004) there are about 707,270 free full text articles from 358 HighWire-hosted journals.
See especially the list of journals entirely or partially (archives) free (http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl). News and updates may be received by email. There is also an electronic alerts service that sends out the TOC of journals immediately after publication.

5.       PLoS Medicine (http://www.plosmedicine.org/) "the second open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the scientific and medical literature a public resource". Designed according to the now known model of PLoS Biology, the particular feature of this project is that authors have to pay the sum of $1,500 if their article is accepted for publication. The first issue of PloS Medicine is scheduled for autumn 2004.

6.       PMC PubMed Central (http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/) " PubMed Central is a digital archive of life sciences journal literature, developed and managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). PMC provides access to almost a hundred journals. The project, which seemed very promising at the start, seems to have slowed down and having some difficulty to develop.  

Sites and further references regarding the Open Access initiative, current projects and debate:  

1.       Washington D.C. Principles for Free Access to Science (http://www.dcprinciples.org/)

2.       BioMed Central (Mis)Leading Open Access Myths (http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/myths.pdf)

3.       The Impact of Open Access Journals: A citation study from Thomson ISI (http://www.isinet.com/media/presentrep/acropdf/impact-oa-journals.pdf)

4.       Nature web focus: Access to the literature: the debate continues (http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/)

5.       Costs and Business Models in Scientific Research Publishing (http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/images/costs_business_7955.pdf) Wellcome Trust

6.       The Cost per Article Reading of Open Access Articles (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january04/holmstrom/01holmstrom.html) Jonas Holmström. D-Lib Magazine; January 2004; 10(1)  

7.    Should Commercial Publishers Be Included in The Model for Open Access through Author Payment? (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june04/king/06king.html) Donald W. King. D-Lib Magazine; June 2004; 10(6) 

June 22, 2004
Benoit Thirion