BioMed Central is an independent publishing organization committed to providing immediate and free access to peer reviewed biomedical research. They currently publish over 100 online journals, ranging in subject scope from general interest to specialty topics. In addition to publishing their own journals, Biomed Central also assists groups of scientists wishing to run their own open access journals by making their online submission and peer-review technology available free of charge.
All articles published by BioMed Central are included in PubMed and are also immediately archived in PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine’s digital archive of journal literature in the life sciences. As a result, all articles are easily searchable and permanently accessible to all.
Another key feature of Biomed Central is that authors retain copyright to their work by agreeing to allow free access to their articles.
BioMed Central is based on a business model in which an article processing charge, paid by the author, covers the cost of peer review and electronic publication. This $500 fee, which is in many cases less than that of some commercial publishers, is waived for authors from member institutions. The University Libraries has paid the membership fee for a year in order to support this publishing alternative as well as University researchers.
For further information about BioMed Central, visit their web site at: http://www.biomedcentral.com. To view the University of Iowa’s BioMed Central Gateway, go to http://www.biomedcentral.com/inst/gateway/
