Using Java[tm] and Linux technologies, Stanford Library and Sun Microsystems Laboratories researchers have adapted a centuries-old model for circulating paper to create one that reduces our reliance on it."
[all "In the Press" articles]

"It already dwarfs the nascent PubMed Central (PMC) initiative that has been set up by the US National Institutes of Health -- whose goal is to create a free global website for the entire life sciences literature (see Nature 401, 6; 1999, Nature 401, 626 ; 1999).

'PMC went live last month, but has so far attracted only a handful of publishers, many of whose back issues are also available from HighWire, such as Molecular Biology of the Cell and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)....

David Lipman, director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the NIH and one of the main architects of PMC, puts a brave face on this situation.

The HighWire initiative is 'a great thing', he says. 'It shows in principle that journals are willing to make back content free and therefore should be willing to take part in PMC.

'Our goal is to provide free access for all life sciences. HighWire can only do it for journals that are paying them.'

But some editors are already questioning the need for PMC. Ira Mellman, editor-in-chief of The Journal of Cell Biology, which is making its back issues free on HighWire after 18 months, says: 'Allowing journals and publishers to select their own host sites makes more sense than trying to enforce a common solution on all.'

Another journal editor adds: 'Virtually everything they have proposed in this regard has been developed by Highwire and other commercial sites. Free access is already provided to literally anyone at an academic or commercial institution.'"
© 2000 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
[all "In the Press" articles]