Varmus Says NIH Will Proceed With On-Line
Archive of Research Papers
By VINCENT KIERNAN
The National Institutes of Health announced
that it would proceed with a controversial on-line archive of scholarly papers in the life
sciences that will be freely available to all. The archive has attracted the ardent
opposition of some scholarly societies and for-profit journal publishers.
The archive, previously called E-biomed, now will be named PubMed
| Some scholarly societies and commercial journal publishers have
objected that the archive would discourage subscriptions to their journals. |
Central, according to a statement released by N.I.H. The new name associates the
archive with PubMed, a World-Wide Web
site operated by N.I.H. that offers free public access to Medline, a computerized index of
the world's biomedical literature.
The N.I.H. statement also said that the archive, which was initially envisioned
to cover only biomedical research, would be expanded to encompass all life-sciences
research, including that in such disciplines as plant and agricultural sciences.
"In the four months since we proposed what we then called E-biomed, we have
heard from hundreds of people and have had discussions with dozens of interested
organizations," Harold E. Varmus, the director of the N.I.H. and the principal
proponent of the archive, said in the statement. "Our focus remains as it was: to
make important research literature available without barriers on the Internet, and we now
have a plan for a system that ultimately will enrich the reading experience, deepen
discussions among scientists, and enhance information flow from the world's investment in
life sciences research."
The overall design of PubMed Central remains unchanged, said David Lipman, who
is the director of N.I.H.'s National Center for Biotechnology Information and is one of
the architects of PubMed Central. The archive will have two sections -- one that accepts
papers that have been peer-reviewed by a scholarly journal, and one that accepts
"preprints" or other papers that have not yet been peer-reviewed but that have
been approved for archiving by a scholarly society or other gatekeeper.
The new description of PubMed Central was written to make clear that N.I.H. will
play no role in determining whether a paper that has not been peer-reviewed is suitable
for archiving in PubMed Central, said Dr. Lipman. Rather, those decisions will be made by
scholarly societies, he said. "That makes it clear that we are not competing with
publishers," he added.
Some scholarly societies and commercial journal publishers have objected that
the archive would discourage subscriptions because the papers published in the journals
would be freely available from the archive.
The archive will open for business in January, the N.I.H. said.
But that may prove to be a difficult target, said Edward P. Rekas, publications
director for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
"January of 2000 is awfully quick. I don't know how [the N.I.H.] is going
to do it," said Mr. Rekas. "Good luck."
_________________
From the Office of the
Director, NIH NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Note to Reporters Concerning Electronic Publishing in the Life Sciences
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Monday, August 30, 1999
In a statement today to editors and publishers of scientific journals and other
members of the scientific community, the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) announced its
plan to establish a repository for electronic distribution of primary research reports in
the life sciences. The new NIH-supported site is to be called PubMed Central. It will be
integrated with the widely used bibliographic site, PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/), and
is intended to be one of several repositories in an international system first proposed by
NIH Director Harold Varmus, M.D., in May 1999. According to today's announcement, PubMed
Central will begin receiving, storing, and distributing content — including
peer-reviewed articles, preprints, and other screened reports from existing journals, new
journals, and reputable scientific organizations — in January 2000.
The mission of the NIH is to conduct and support medical research and to
disseminate the results of that research widely to the public and the scientific
community. The NIH will make use of electronic-publishing technology to fulfill the
dissemination goal by establishing and maintaining PubMed Central, a Web-based repository
that will archive, organize, and distribute peer-reviewed reports from journals, as well
as reports that have been screened but not formally peer reviewed. Screening and peer
review of manuscripts will be the responsibility of scientific publishers, professional
societies, and other groups independent of the NIH. As a result of the interest in this
proposal and the comments from the scientific community, the scope of the content has been
expanded to include the life sciences in general, including plant and agricultural
research as well as biology and medicine.
"In the four months since we proposed what we then called E-biomed, we have
heard from hundreds of people and have had discussions with dozens of interested
organizations," said Dr. Varmus. "Whether the views support or oppose the
proposal, these comments have included valuable suggestions. Our focus remains as it was:
to make important research literature available without barriers on the Internet, and we
now have a plan for a system that ultimately will enrich the reading experience, deepen
discussions among scientists, and enhance information flow from the world's investment in
life sciences research," he said.
Attached: Summary about E-publishing sent August 30, 1999, to journal
publishers, scientific organizations, and scientists, and posted at new web address http://www.nih.gov/welcome/director/pubmedcentral/pubmedcentral.htm.
The original proposal for a system called E-biomed appeared for comment on May 5, 1999. An
addendum was published on the site on June 20, 1999. These documents are also at this
site.
Contact: Anne Thomas
(301) 496-4461
Background stories from The Chronicle:
Editor of
'Science' Voices Doubts on Proposed Archive of Biomedical Research (7/9/99)
Idea of
On-Line Archives of Papers Sparks Debate on Future of Journals (7/9/99)
British Journal
and Stanford Plan an 'E-Print' Server for Biomedical Research (6/30/99)
Medical Journal
Criticizes NIH Proposal for On-Line Scholarly Publication (6/7/99)
