From: Donald Forsdyke. Discussion Leader. Bionet.journals.note
The following communication from NIH staff to my university, indicates
the strong pressures on NIH not to rock the publishing boat too much.
Quite a dramatic change from its original position:
"You are correct: At this point researchers cannot contribute directly
>to PubMed Central. The NIH will not make decisions about content; all
>those decisions are to be made by journals or organizations willing
>to undertake peer review and redaction. There may be new journals
>that will use PubMed Central as their primary publishing venue, and
>they may be interested in your faculty member's work, or the faculty
>member may choose to set up such an organization to start a new
>journal. (In the latter case, he or she may wish to wait until the
>Advisory Board, which we will put together shortly, sets guidelines
>for such new journals.)
>>As for the costs, they are of two kinds: the infrastructure, which
>NIH is covering, and the preparation costs. Those preparation costs
>can be covered by societies or journals as part of their publication
>process, or they may be passed on to authors. The NIH will allow
>researchers to use grant funds to cover preparation, review, and
>redaction costs; other funding agencies are considering doing the
>same. As you know, much of the cost of document preparation is in the
>review process, and most of that is absorbed by researchers'
>institutions, as journals typically do not pay peer reviewers. Our
>discussions with societies and journals during our comment phase
>persuaded us that there are viable economic models in the PubMed
>Central environment.
>>Our intent is to provide PubMed Central without charge to researchers
>and members of the public around the world.
>> --Judith Turner
>
