BioOne Progress Report
Excerpt from Part I of the Report:
BioOne was launched in 2001 and has become the leading not-for-profit aggregator and online disseminator of peer-reviewed research in organismal and integrative biology, ecology and environmental science. Our progress continued in 2005 with excellent results, including strong growth and wider diversity in subscribers, users, publishers and content. We will commemorate the milestone of providing five years of online service in spring 2006 and will continuously strive to increase our relevance and value to
stakeholders.
In virtually every respect, BioOne has exceeded the initial goals of the organization. Beginning with a collection of 37 titles at launch in April 2001, publications have more than doubled, to 82 in 2005, and the number of full text pages in the database has nearly quadrupled since our inaugural year. Subscribers at the end of 2005 exceed 800 institutions and organizations. Researcher’s online usage has also grown significantly and remains exceptionally strong. Royalties to publishers have grown substantially, in both total and average per title, becoming an important source of income for these non-profit organizations.
Our success in providing an economical and effective online research resource reflects the collaborative efforts and vision of a community of librarians, scholars, publishers and others, including our many partners. All have a commitment to our mission of ensuring comprehensive and affordable access to peer-reviewed bioscience research under sustainable publishing and subscription programs. The cornerstone of BioOne’s strategy has always been to evolve our underlying business model to keep pace with changes in scholarly publishing. This includes, in particular, the trend in libraries away from retaining print copies of journals where reliable electronic access exists. In response, we continue to fine-tune BioOne’s operating model from one designed originally to provide incremental revenue to journal publishers, to one that provides progressively more substantial revenue to help offset declines in institutional print subscription sales. Simultaneously, we have stepped up our efforts to offer publishers
meaningful programs to improve internal publishing efficiencies and tap into alternative income sources. Without such initiatives, the continued viability and independence of notfor- profit journal programs may erode, to the detriment of scholarship and science.
Read BioOne’s progress report online at:
http://www.bioone.org/pdf/BioOne05ProgressRpt.pdf
