The consortium, of Ohio's college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio, was motivated to invest in BioMed Central membership because of current budget constraints on both their member libraries and the OhioLINK central budget. The combination of financial constraints and the continued rising costs of journal subscriptions stimulated the need to seek out alternative publishing models.
Tom Sanville, Executive Director of OhioLINK, explains the commitment by OhioLINK to fund open access publishing for all 84 member institutions:
"We need economically sustainable access to quality research. We want to give our faculty the opportunity to publish through the most cost effective means possible, while simultaneously maximizing access to their research."
In addition, OhioLINK will host BioMed Central journal content in its Electronic Journal Center (EJC). The EJC, launched in 1998, is "one of the largest collections of electronic journals run by a library consortium," says Sanville. The EJC will allow users to quickly access the BioMed Central open access research from this local resource and BioMed Central research will gain increased visibility by being included - more than 3.7 million articles are downloaded each year by OhioLINK users.
The OhioLINK membership is the single-largest consortia deal BioMed Central has secured in the U.S. to date. Natasha Robshaw, Head of Marketing at BioMed Central, commented:
"The OhioLINK membership is a huge boost to BioMed Central, and to the driv
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Contact: Natasha Robshaw
press@biomedcentral.com
44-207-323-0323
BioMed Central
10-Nov-2003