On May 31, the Nature Publishing Group launched a new journal, Nature Chemical Biology (NCB). I'm not announcing this because NCB is OA (it's not), but because it relies on the beleaguered, OA PubChem. Excerpt from the press release: 'A unique feature of the journal's website is linkage of chemical compounds mentioned in research articles to the PubChem database, a new initiative of the US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Institutes of Health. This is the first example of a commercial publisher linking into PubChem, says Nature....The PubChem link allows readers of Nature Chemical Biology to go in a single click, from the mention of a molecule in a paper to a rich and growing collection of information about Chemical Structures and properties, and biological assay results, hosted by the NCBI. In addition, when a manuscript is accepted for publication in Nature Chemical Biology the acceptance process includes an automated deposition of the article's compound data to PubChem, and the creation of mutual web links between these PubChem records and the paper concerned. This will enhance the utility of Nature Chemical Biology for the scientific community by providing new data for the PubChem database.'
(PS: NPG clearly finds PubChem to be useful and has endorsed it in the most practical way by becoming invested in its survival. Can NPG make a public statement to defend PubChem from the lobbying blitz by the American Chemical Society?)
Update. The first issue of Nature Chemical Biology is now online. At the same time, NPG has removed the press release announcing the launch. So my link to it above is no longer working. But you can still find a copy e.g. at the LaboratoryTalk web site.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/03/2005 12:02:00 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.
