Nucelic Acids Research (NAR) publishes annually a special, open-access issue, The Molecular Biology Database Collection. 548 freely-available databases of genetic, proteomic and biochemical data are described in a series of papers that reflect the exponential growth of bioinformatics, and "a natural response of the biological community as a whole to the challenge of staying current in this ever-increasing flow of information," as Michael Y. Galperin states in his introductory essay. Examples include reports on Genbank and updated resources of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), comparative bacterial genomics, viral genomics, databases on protein interactions, plant genes, antimicrobial peptides, among others. The editors remark in an opening editorial that they are "strongly in support of the principles of open access, " have voted to move towards open-access publishing, "with all electronic content freely available to all," and are using their database issue as a test of the author charges model.
Posted by
Garrett at 12/19/2003 03:00:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
