From our point of view, at BioMed Central, the PLoS journals are welcome as an increase in the choice authors have. We never had the ambition or unrealistic expectation that we would publish *all* the world's research in the life sciences, but we do hope that all research will sooner or later be published in open access journals. At this stage, the competition really is not between the PLoS journals and the BMC journals, but between the open access journals on the one hand, and the traditional subscription or licence-based ones on the other.
The PLoS journals are also welcome in that they validate the business model that BMC has been operating for open access journals for some time now, i.e. the 'input-paid' model. It is to be hoped that more initiatives of this kind will follow and also that existing (society) publishers will convert to this model. Although healthy competition between open access journals will no-doubt emerge eventually, there are so many articles still published 'behind toll-gates' at the present time, that competition is among the least of our worries. With best wishes for 2003, which we all hope will be the year of an open access 'tipping point'! Jan Velterop BioMed Central -----Original Message----- From: Jim Till To: [email protected] Sent: 1/4/03 8:18 PM Subject: Re: PLoS Biology On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, I wrote [in part]: [jt]>Can anyone explain to me why the Journal of Biology and PLoS Biology [jt]>won't be in "head-to-head competition"? Peter Suber replied [in part]: [ps]> We know that scientific journals are not fungible. If they were, [ps]> then libraries would immediately retain the free ones and drop the [ps]> priced ones. But if they are not fungible, then that qualifies the [ps]> sense in which two open-access journals in the same scientific field [ps]> are in "head-to-head competition". They might compete for [ps]> submissions, but once they publish the submissions they receive and [ps]> accept, then they complement one another. If I understand this particular point of Peter's correctly, then BMC's Journal of Biology and the proposed PLoS Biology shouldn't be regarded as mutually interchangeable. I agree that each of these open-access journals is likely to develop a distinct focus, based in part on decisions made by the editorial boards of each journal, in part on choices made by those who decide to submit articles, in part on how vigorously and effectively each journal is marketed, in part on which journal happens to be the first to publish a really high-impact article, (etc., etc.). I've just been reading Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" (Little, Brown & Co., 2002 edition). The "Tipping Point" is "that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire". I hope that the establishment of the BMC and PLoS journals will be seen, in retrospect, as "magic moments" when open access to the biological and biomedical research literature began to spread "like wildfire". Jim Till University of Toronto
