[LIS-Forum] ACS opened for open Access

[Madhuresh]

Dear Friends,

At last ACS (American Chemical society) opened its door for open access.
ACS was considered as a toughest publisher for Open access. Now ACS
announced its compliance with Public Access Guidelines released by the
NIH i.e. free availability of articles after one year of publication
with some conditions for its 33 scholarly journals. Here is the press
release: 
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American Chemical Society broadens access to its articles
Conditions set for free availability one year after publication 

http://pubs.acs.org/pressrelease/article_access.html
http://pubs.acs.org/pressrelease/article_access.pdf

  
The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society,
is broadening access to research articles published in its 33 scholarly
journals. The Society is introducing two new experimental policies that
define how readers can view free digital versions of ACS articles
beginning one year after publication. 

First, in response to public access guidelines recently released by the
NIH1, the ACS will post, for public accessibility 12 months after
publication, the peer-reviewed version of authors' manuscripts on the
National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central during 2005. The NIH
policy encourages authors whose work it funds to submit their
peer-reviewed manuscripts to PubMed Central, the agency's free digital
archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. 

Commenting on this new service, ACS Publications Senior Vice President
Brian Crawford said, "We understand that NIH-funded authors will wish to
comply voluntarily with the NIH's policy request. By introducing this
service, the ACS will take on the administrative burden of compliance
and at the same time will ensure the integrity of the scientific
literature by depositing the appropriate author version of the
manuscript after peer-review."

Second, as a value-added service to ACS authors and a method of further
opening access to its content, the full-text version of all research
articles published in ACS journals will be made available at no charge
via an author-directed Web link 12 months after final publication.
Allowing unrestricted access to articles 12 months after publication is
an expansion of the Society's current practice of permitting 50
downloads of authors' articles free of charge during the first year of
publication. This initiative will go into effect during 2005.

"We are very pleased to expand access in this way to research published
in ACS journals," said Crawford. "It is fundamental to the ACS mission
to support and promote the research enterprise and to foster
communication among its scientists. Providing unrestricted access via
author-directed links 12 months after publication - in addition to the
50 free e-prints currently allowed during the first year of publication
- reinforces that mission."

Robert Bovenschulte, president of the ACS Publications Division, said
"These experimental policies balance the important goal of expanding
dissemination of research with the need to preserve the integrity of the
scientific record as well as the viability of our journals program." 

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization, chartered by
the U.S. Congress, with a multidisciplinary membership of more than
158,000 chemists and chemical engineers. It publishes numerous
scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences
and provides educational, science policy and career programs in
chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

1(Notice Number NOT-OD-05-022/
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html)
 
Released: March 7, 2005

#13859

Related Press Releases:

*         American Chemical Society broadens author-directed article
access: http://pubs.acs.org/pressrelease/e_prints.html 

*         American Chemical Society policy will offer service to authors
of NIH-funded research articles:
http://pubs.acs.org/pressrelease/nih.html


Regards
Madhuresh Singhal
Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited,
Electronic City, phase II, Hosur Road,
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