Electronic publishing: all talk and no action?

Abstract

Scientific e-publishing ventures have adopted a confusing tangle of names that often look and sound alike. Here is a key to the major players so far.BioMed Central — A for-profit company in development, BioMed Central says it will publish free peer-reviewed e-journals and post them on PubMed Central and also offer an unreviewed e-print archive called BioMed Express. Plans to begin accepting papers in May. Detailed explanations now at http://www.biomedcentral.com.BioMedNet — A for-profit subsidiary of Reed-Elsevier; provides free news, networking, and collaborative space for scientists, plus paid access to journals and databases. Undergoing redesign at http://www.biomednet.com/.COS (Community of Science) — A for-profit company, COS calls itself “a network of scientists and research organizations on the World Wide Web.” Provides some free services to scientists and institutions plus paid access to tools for collaboration and joint authoring, plus some databases. COS says it plans to serve as a front end to PubMed Central, but links not yet available. http://www.cos.comE-Biomed — Original name for PubMed Central, no longer in use.E-Biosci — Europe-based global website for peer-reviewed scientific literature, a planned collaboration among publishers, research organizations, and EMBO. Hopes to begin this year. No URL yet.HighWire Press — The home site for many peer-reviewed journals has just made scores of them publicly available. Only three are entirely free; 51 are offering free back issues and 32 are offering free trial access. Claims to be the second-largest free full-text science archive in the world and the largest in the life sciences. http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtlThe Lancet — An electronic research archive for unreviewed e-prints in international health. Free. http://www.thelancet.com/newlancet/eprintNetprints — Set up by the British Medical Journal as a place for authors to archive their completed studies — before, during, or after peer review. Free. http://clinmed.netprints.orgPubMed — Free search tool for accessing literature citations and linking to full-text journals at web sites of participating publishers. Developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of the National Library of Medicine at NIH. Recently added short reviews and consumer health information to the site. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/PubMed Central — Free NIH repository for peer-reviewed primary research reports in the life sciences, originally called E-Biomed. At present plans to post back issues of a few journals. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/PubMed Express — Future free NIH repository for e-prints, research reports that have not (or not yet) been peer-reviewed. URL will be http://www.pubmedexpress.nih.gov.