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Molecular Biology and Evolution 17:1 (2000)
© 2000 Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
Letter from the Editor |
We have also scanned in all the back issues of MBE up to December 1997, in collaboration with the University of Arizona library. These will be available soon, free of charge, to members with online access to the journal.
In October I attended a HighWire Press Publisher's meeting held in the AAAS building in Washington DC. I was able to get some feel for the complexity of the changes underway in scientific publishing. One thing that is very clear is that no one knows exactly where these changes are leading. What is clear, however, is that the future of journals is largely, if not completely, on line
Many journals already have the clear goal of going on line-only at some point in the near future. Several publishers already regard the on-line version as the definitive document. There is a clear movement from thinking of the print version as the primary document, perhaps with on-line supplements, to viewing the on-line version, replete with color, sound, movies etc, as the primary document and the print version as a secondary document, retained largely for archival purposes.
We will be monitoring events very closely, assessing reader response to the services we offer on line and adjusting to the new publishing environment as appropriate.
The big news items in this area have been the announcements by NIH of PubMed Central, and the development of the European e-BioScience proposal. It is clear that these developments have shaken up the science publishing industry. Publishers are looking at ways in which they can improve services and functionality. Some have already committed to providing their content for free through PubMed Central on an experimental basis with short delay following original publication
MBE will not be joining PubMed Central at this stage for three reasons:
- Archiving: PubMed Central is, as its name implies, a centralised archive. This might change, but it is not clear that it will at this point. There are considerable dangers with a central archive and it is our view that a distributed archival system (such as the existing institutional library system) should continue.
- Control: If we were to participate in PubMed Central we lose control of the hosting of our published material. We would then not be able to fully utilise the potential value of on-line publishing that derives from knowing who our readers are and what they are most interested in reading. Loss of control would also mean limitations on how we could combine your published material with other kinds of information
- Identity: We believe that there is an advantage to maintaining MBE's clear identity as a leading journal in the fields that we represent. There is a danger that this identity would be lost if our articles were primarily accessed through a large database such as PubMed Central.
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