An “immediately open access” option for authors of papers in "Genome Research"

As a founder member of the DC Principles Coalition (www.dcprinciples.org), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press is committed to making research results as widely available as possible. Papers published in Genome Research can already be read without restriction at the journal’s website (www.genome.org) six months after publication and copies of these papers are deposited with the National Library of Medicine’s database PubMedCentral (www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov). The Press also makes its journals available free of charge online to scientists in the poorest countries through the HINARI (www.healthinternetwork.org) and AGORA (www.aginternetwork.org) projects.

“We are pleased to expand the service we offer the scientific community by making this option available,” Dr. John Inglis, Executive Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, commented. “Genome Research is one of the most significant journals in the fields of genetics and genomics. It has a professional, dedicated editorial and production staff and state-of-the-art technologies for peer review, redaction, publishing, and distribution that are funded by a combination of subscription fees from institutions, advertising fees from companies, and author surcharges for color art and page use. If authors alone bore the entire cost of publication, the charge required would be beyond all but the most well-funded scientists, excluding work from many exceptional laboratories worldwide.”

Its diversity of financial support is an important reason that the “immediately open access” option is possible for Genome Research and the surcharge has been set at a level that anticipates the continuation of multiple revenue streams. “We recognize that if a large proportion of authors choose immediately open access, librarians may come to feel it is not worth continuing to subscribe to Genome Research” Inglis said. “We plan to engage the library community in a dialogue as our experience with this option grows, to make sure the journal’s ability to contribute to the advance of science isn’t undermined.”

Dr. Hillary Sussman, Managing Editor of Genome Research added, “It is clear that some scientists, many of them active in the genome science community, are personally committed to the philosophy of open access and have the resources to support the ‘author-pays’ model of publication charges. By making the immediately open access option available, Genome Research is providing those scientists with the opportunity to publish in an established, high-profile journal, while continuing to offer timely public access to the cutting-edge genomic science contributed by all our authors.”

Genome Research is an international, monthly, peer-reviewed research journal publishing genome studies and genome-based analysis of biological processes in all species. Launched in 1995, it has an impact factor of 9.635, placing it among the Institute for Scientific Information’s (ISI) five most highly cited primary research journals in genetics. New data in genetics, comparative and functional genomics, proteomics, evolution studies, systems biology, bioinformatics, epigenetics, and technology are published as research papers in the form of articles and letters, or methods and resource reports. Complete data sets are presented electronically on the journal's web site where appropriate. The journal also provides review articles, perspectives, and Insight/Outlook articles that comment on the latest advances published in the journal and elsewhere. For more information, please visit www.genome.org.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press is an internationally renowned publisher of books, journals, and electronic media, located on Long Island, New York. It is a division of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an innovator in life science research and the education of scientists, students, and the public. For more information, contact (516) 422-4005 or visit www.cshlpress.com.