ChemRefer Newsletter (August 2006)

The ChemRefer Newsletter (August 2006)

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Contents

Interview with Bryan Vickery from Chemistry Central

Popular Searches

Selected Articles from Contributors

Useful Web Resources

Interview with Bryan Vickery about the Launch of Chemistry Central

OPEN ACCESS

The changing economics of distributing information in the internet age are drivers for change that are equally valid across 
all STM subjects. So far, these changes have been happening mainly in biomedicine and physics, but now chemists are becoming 
more aware of the opportunities. For example, the American Chemical Society's vehement opposition to NIH's PubChem open 
access database of chemical compounds and bioassay data, has led many chemists to ask whether Chemistry might have something 
to learn from the life science community, with its public infrastructure of universally accessible database resources (such 
as Genbank and PubMed).

Whereas in the paper world subscriptions were required to disseminate research as widely as possible (to cover the cost of 
printing and postage), we can now distribute articles universally via the internet at minimal cost.

The major costs of publishing are therefore no longer in the distribution aspect, but in handling manuscripts, managing the 
peer-review process, laying out the final version of the article, and long term digital archiving. Open access journals 
generally cover these costs through Article Processing Charges (APCs), which offer complete transparency in terms, by making 
the cost of the publication service offered to the scientific community by different publishers directly comparable.

Describing APCs as "author pays" is misleading since these costs are generally paid by the author's institution or funder, 
just as it is the institution or funder that currently pays for subscriptions to traditional journals. In fact, in the case 
of the Beilstein Institut (Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry) and the ACS Division of Geochemistry (Geochemical 
Transactions), the organisation running the journal covers the publication costs themselves, and so no APC is payable at all.

For authors, open access delivers the widest possible exposure of their research. Journals from BioMed Central and Chemistry 
Central offer rapid peer review, and publish articles in provisional form immediately upon acceptance, maximising the speed 
with which new findings can be communicated.  What's more, the open access license allows authors and others to make full 
use of the article, including the reuse and redistribution of the article and associated data, as long as proper attribution 
is given.

Increasingly we hear of researchers in multidisciplinary fields who are hindered in their research because their 
institution does not subscribe to a journal on the edge of their field - open access will eliminate these barriers, and 
allow greater cross-fertilisation of ideas. Again, for authors this means reaching an audience which they may not have 
envisaged for their research output.

CHEMISTRY CENTRAL

The initial launch phase of Chemistry Central has three main thrusts. Firstly, to raise awareness among chemists that a credible
open access alternative to traditional scholarly publications exists, that will disseminate their work more widely and increase readership
and use. Secondly, it showcases the chemistry research which BioMed Central's journals are already
publishing, proving their technical suitability for chemistry research. Thirdly, by launching Chemistry Central we are offering
our open access publishing services to those who wish to launch new open access journals in chemistry, or to
transfer existing journals to this model. This may include groups of individuals, institutes or societies.

Chemistry Central: Open Access for Libraries & Research Institutions

For libraries and research institutions we offer several "membership" options, which allow substantial
net savings and key features that include the non-direct payment of article processing charges for researchers during the
term of membership; discounts on article processing charges; a 15% discount on all institutional subscriptions to BioMed
Central's paid for products; a specially created webpage listing all relevant research papers published in BioMed Central's
open access journals generated at the member organisation, acting as a permanent showcase. The BioMed Central Membership
Program will be expanded to include chemistry.

Libraries should also be able to find efficiencies with open access. There is no need for authentication and associated
troubleshooting, no licensing, no subscription tracking, no managing missing issues. In addition, borrowing fees for
interlibrary loans can be saved for every article that becomes open access, and staff time in both borrowing and lending is
also reduced. Also, open access means savings in copyright clearance fees when developing materials for classroom use and
course packs.

Chemistry Central: Open Access for Commercial Enterprises

Open access research is freely available not just to the academic community, but to commercial enterprises too. This is
especially important in chemistry - a field in which industrial research plays a particularly important role. Access by
commercial enterprises to the scientific literature not only promises to boost economic development, but it can also
facilitate improved collaboration between industry and academia, and stimulate innovation.

CHEMISTRY CENTRAL JOURNAL

Chemistry Central Journal, which will start publishing in early 2007, will be broken down into subject areas and will be
analogous to the successful BMC-series of open access journals published by BioMed Central, such as BMC Bioinformatics .
Many senior chemists (including several Nobel prize-winners) have given their backing to the project and will be
participating editorially.

The backing of these senior chemists, as members of the Editorial Advisory Board and as Section Editors, will assist the
in-house team in selecting the most appropriate reviewers for the manuscripts, and in conducting a thorough and timely
review process. We offer both electronic submission and peer-review systems, and will aim to have an initial decision
within 6-8 weeks of submission.

To aid authors whose work includes chemical structures and reaction schemes, Chemistry Central allows the submission of
figures in ChemDraw and ISIS/Draw formats. Authors can now upload such files without the need to convert them first,
offering increased convenience and greater flexibility in the event that figures need subsequent editing. The Chemistry
Central/BioMed Central submission system automatically converts these files into a suitable form for display on the web,
and displays a preview allowing the author to confirm that the file has been processed correctly.

The growing importance of open access publishing is demonstrated by the increasing number of traditional publishers who
are now trialling open access initiatives. Four new "opt-in" open access programs, from Wiley, the BMJ, Cambridge
University Press and the American Physical Society have been announced this month alone. These are moves that we welcome.
However, we believe that, having designed our systems from the start to deliver open access, we can offer a better service
to authors, at lower cost, compared to traditional journals. We also believe that access is maximised if all research in a
journal is open access, since occasional open access articles in an otherwise subscription-only journal are much more
difficult for readers to find.

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Selected Articles from Contributors - Focus on Electrochemistry

Variable Mott-Schottky plots acquisition by potentiodynamic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry, Volume 9, Issue 12, Dec 2005, 845 - 849) - Springer

Potentiodynamic Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy of Silver on Platinum in Underpotential and Overpotential Deposition (Surface Science V. 566-568 (2004)) - Elsevier B.V.

Potentiodynamic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy of lead upd on polycrystalline gold and on selenium atomic underlayer (Electrochemistry Communications 7 (2005) 631-636) - Elsevier Science

Potentiodynamic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for solid state chemistry (Solid State Phenomena V.90-91(2003)) - Trans Tech Publications Inc.

Potentiodynamic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (Electrochimica Acta 50 (2005) 1553-1563) - Elsevier Science

Focus on Open Access Publishing

Trends in Accessibility of Chemistry Journals (12th Conference on Professional Information Resources Prague, May 23-25, 2006) - INFORUM

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Useful Web Resources

Combichem.net - The World of Medicinal Chemistry...

Bio.com - Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical News...

ACCN.ca - Canadian Chemical News...

OpenScience.org - Open Source Scientific Software...

IUPAC.org - Advancing the Chemical Sciences...

The Sceptical Chymist - A Blog by the editors of Nature...

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