Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, March 19, 2004

News article on BioMed Central pricing changes

Andrew Albanese, BioMed Central Changes Tack, Library Journal 3/15/2004. Albanese reports on BMC's proposal to change institutional membership charges from a "flat fee" to a "per article published" model. Further, the article reports that the changes were announced on the LIBLICENSE-L discussion list, which surprised Phil Davis, librarian of Cornell University, who remarked: "I think BMC is trying to figure out their model as they go along," and also expressed doubts that the new model would bring home knowledge of actual publishing costs to scholars and that libraries would pay: "It is potentially a suicidal model in terms of our budget." Lastly, comments of Scott Plutchak, the editor of the Journal of the Medical Library Association, are included, particularly his view that OA is "an 'institutional' issue, not merely a library issue."