Hardin Scholarly Communication News

PLoS Biology’s first impact factor of 13.9 from ISI establishes it among the most highly cited journals in the life sciences. An impact factor of 13.9 places PLoS Biology above such established journals as EMBO Journal, Current Biology, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In ISI’s category of general biology journals, PLoS Biology is ranked first. PLoS Biology was launched in October 2003 as an open access home to the very best in biological research.

PLoS Press Release, June 27, 2005 <http://www.plos.org/news/announce_pbioif.html>

ISI’s 2004 Journal Citation Report assigned Neuro-Oncology an ISI Impact Factor of 3.907. The new, improved rating further solidifies Neuro-Oncology’s position as the foremost publication in the specific field of neuro-oncology and signals its significance to the field, as evidenced by the steady increase of the rating over the three years that Duke University Press has published the journal; ISI ratings were 2.717 and 3.365 in (2002 and 2003, respectively. The improved 2004 ranking places Neuro-Oncology 15th among 140 ranked clinical neurology journals and 32nd among 121 ranked oncology journals. In comparison, Kluwer’s Journal of Neuro-Oncology earned an ISI Impact Factor of 1.968 for 2004 (54th in clinical neurology, 71st in oncology).

SPARC e-news, June-July 2005

From Ken Fulton, Publisher, PNAS:

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) announced that its legacy content dating back to volume 1, issue 1, in 1915 is now digitally archived, searchable, and freely available on the PNAS web site at http://www.pnas.org/.

PNAS presents its free digital archive in conjunction with its 90th anniversary. The digital collection spans nearly a century
of seminal scientific research, and comprises more than 390,000 pages  and 80,000 articles.

PNAS is a break-even operation and relies about equally on author fees and on subscription fees to cover its operating costs. PNAS subscribers gain access to the most recent 6 months of published content. [Hardin Library has a subscription to PNAS: http://proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/login?url=http://www.pnas.org/]

On June 28, the Research Councils UK (RCUK) published its long-awaited open-access policy for public comment.  The comment period ends on August 31, 2005.  The policy mandates open access and it applies to all publicly funded research (not just biomedicine).

Research Councils are the first public funding agencies in any country to mandate OA to the results of agency-funded research.  The first private funding agency to do so was the Wellcome Trust, also from the UK.  By chance, the two policies will take effect on the same date, October 1, 2005.  The two precedents together make the UK a leader in the worldwide campaign for open access. 

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, #87, July 2, 2005 <http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/07-02-05.htm>

Showing remarkable quickness, the Senate passed S. 1389, reauthorizing and revising the USA PATRIOT Act, just one week after the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill through committee, and just hours before the Senate broke for its summer recess. The Senate version reflects many changes pressed for by the American Library Association and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) acknowledged ALA’s work on the Senate floor. "One of the most unlikely groups became so important in this debate–the American Library Association," Durbin said. "I cannot recall a time in recent memory when this organization showed such leadership…They sent us petitions gathered from libraries across the nation, and I think they really did good work on behalf of our Constitution and our rights and liberties guaranteed under the Bill of Rights. I wish to dedicate any success we have with this revision of the Patriot Act to the American Library Association and all those who stood with them."

The bill now must be reconciled in committee with the House of Representatives bill. ALA officials however, were more optimistic after the Senate bill included many of the "safeguards for library and reader privacy" that have been sought by the library community since the passage of the law in 2001, including tougher requirements for searching library records under Section 215. Both bills contain sunset provisions for section 215, with the House version lasting 10 years and the Senate version a preferable four years before review. The Senate bill also requires the FBI to "give facts showing reason to believe that the records sought are "relevant to" counter terrorism or counter intelligence Investigation." The House bill simply requires that the records be "relevant" to an investigation.

LJ Academic Newsire, Aug. 2, 2005

EBSCO has acquired DynaMed, an evidence-based clinical reference tool developed by a physician. Offered through DynaMed LLC (now an EBSCO subsidiary), It is designed primarily for use at the point-of-care.
DynaMed provides clinically-organized full text summaries for 1,800 topics. A topically-driven menu enables physicians, medical students and other health care professionals to research high-end synthesized information from respected publications, associations and contributing clinicians.

DynaMed monitors the content of 400 medical journals directly and indirectly by using journal review services. Summaries can be viewed in an alphabetical listing or searched by category for quick and effective research. Users can view the most recent updates, post comments for review, access patient-oriented information.

[Hardin Library recently subscribed to DynaMed.  For UI affliliates, go to this URL and click Login/Enter at top left: http://proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/login?url=http://www.dynamicmedical.com] 

Serials E-News, 20 July 2005 <http://www.openrfi.com/NASIG/si_pd.cfm?ac=5194&pid=10&zid=2003> 

Since the NIH policy took effect on May 2, grantees have submitted 340 papers to PubMed Central (PMC) for public access.  Of those, 11 are now processed, online, and ready to read.

Each is available in HTML and PDF editions.  Here are the links to HTML editions:

http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1181535
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1180706
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1180705
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1180481
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1180480
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1167682
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1167681
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1167601
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1167600
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1167599
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1166349

The 11 articles were published in a mix of profit and non-profit journals:  Epilepsia (Blackwell), Journal of Applied Physiology (American Physiological Society), Development (Company of Biologists) (two articles), Chemistry & Biology (Elsevier), Journal of Biological Chemistry (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) (two articles), Trends in Immunology (Elsevier), Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Inc.), Brain, Behavior and Evolution (Karger), and Hormones and Behavior (Elsevier). 

To read more about the first submissions, go to: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-02-05.htm#firstfruits 

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #88, Aug. 2, 2005 

It has only been a few months since the National Institutes of Health implemented its public access policy, but the response from authors thus far has been dismal. According to a report from the NIH last week, only 340 articles have been submitted to PubMed Central since the policy’s implementation. In a statement, SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), said that figure amounts to just three percent of eligible articles. NIH funding is responsible for about 65,000 scholarly articles annually, according to SPARC, which means that NIH grantees could have chosen to place approximately 11,000 articles on PubMed Central since the policy went into effect on May 2. In February, the NIH released its final policy which called for voluntary submission of NIH-funded research within one year of publication–a sharp retreat from its original draft policy that would’ve required submission within six months of publication.

While supporters of the NIH’s public access efforts originally lauded the potential message of the new policy–that taxpayers deserved access to the research they fund–critics said that the final policy would be ineffective at best, and possibly detrimental, creating a de facto one year embargo on research. In a statement and in a videotaped message delivered at the Association of College and Research Libraries meeting in April, NIH director Elias Zerhouni said that he expected that "only in limited cases will authors deem it necessary to select the longest delay period." So far, that prediction appears to be off-target, although, it should be noted, outreach efforts to NIH grantees are just beginning. Toward that end, the U.S. Senate last week, in conjunction with the FY 2006 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill, requested that the NIH report submission statistics by February of next year, including the total number of applicable works submitted since the policy took effect, as well as the embargo period selected by each submitting author.

However, Sharon Terry, president of the Genetic Alliance and a member of the Public Access Working Group–main supporters along with SPARC of the NIH’s original policy–suggested that the early returns were enough to evaluate the shortcomings of the NIH’s scaled-back policy. "If we were a venture capital company investing in a new business, and we saw early performance returns at the rate of three percent, we would not wait to re-examine our strategy," she said in a statement.

Library Journal Academic Newswire, July 19, 2005 

One month after the U.S. House of Representatives endorsed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access policy and called for measures to judge its effectiveness, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee followed suit, requesting a prompt and thorough report evaluating the success of the policy. The Senate report accompanying the Fiscal Year 2006 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill requests a report from NIH by February 2006 that will include data on the total number of applicable works submitted since the May 2 implementation date, as well as the embargo period selected by each submitting author.

Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC, the founding organizational member of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA), noted that ATA members are committed to continuing to work to ensure the implementation of a meaningful public access policy at NIH, and are encouraged by this strong signal of support from Congress.

ATA believes that the NIH policy’s success will be measured by the number of articles deposited in PubMed Central and made accessible to the public soon after publication, and has consistently asked that the NIH publicly post such statistics to help gauge the policy’s effectiveness. Last month, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni issued a positive response to ATA’s request to post these critical submission data on the NIH public access website. (To view this document, go to http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/docs/NIH_Postings_Response.pdf)

Data released by the NIH at a recent meeting of the NIH Public Access Working Group indicate that the number of submissions since the policy’s implementation is very low. Based on annual data, NIH funding is responsible for about 65,000 scholarly articles per year. Therefore, NIH grantees could have chosen to place approximately 11,000 articles on PubMed Central——making this taxpayer-funded research available free to the public. However, statistics provided by NIH show that only three percent of this number, or 340 articles accepted for publication, have been submitted by NIH grantees.

SPARC e-news, June-July 2005 

Elsevier has finalised the acquisition of MC Strategies, Inc., a US-based firm that specialises in developing and delivering online training content for the healthcare industry.

MC Strategies, Atlanta, Georgia, has released new services for the healthcare industry ranging from web-based training content (WebInservice) for healthcare professionals to hospital quality assurance consulting for enterprise-wide compliance. MC Strategies has a client base of integrated healthcare delivery networks in the US, including 1000 hospitals, colleges and universities.

Serials E-News, July 18, 2005 <http://www.openrfi.com/NASIG/si_pd.cfm?ac=5194&pid=10&zid=2010>