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Biomedicine's Electronic Publishing Paradigm Shift

Copyright Policy and PubMed Central

Affiliation of the author: Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.

Correspondence and reprints: Barry P. Markovitz, MD, Department of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis Children's Hospital, One Children's Place, St. Louis, MO 63110; e-mail: <markovitz{at}kids.wustl.edu>.

Abstract Biomedical publishing stands at a crossroads. The traditional print, peer-reviewed, subscription journal has served science well but is now being called into question. Because of spiraling print journal costs and the worldwide acceptance of the Internet as a valid publication medium, there is a compelling opportunity to re-examine our current paradigm and future options. This report illustrates the conflicts and restrictions inherent in the current publishing model and examines how the single act of permitting authors to retain copyright of their scholarly manuscripts may preserve the quality-control function of the current journal system while allowing PubMed Central, the Internet archiving system recently proposed by the director of the National Institutes of Health, to simplify and liberate access to the world's biomedical literature.

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