Subject: Adhoc: NIH Announced PubMed Central


Dr. Harold Varmus announced today that by January 2000, NIH will
establish PubMed Central, an electronic repository for research
results in the life sciences.  This announcement is an outgrowth of
the electronic publishing proposal that Dr. Varmus first released 
in
May.  Attached for your review is a letter Dr. Varmus has released 
to
scientists about the system.  Also attached is a release distributed
to reporters and editors along with a set of Q and A's on the project.
 More information is available on the NIH news page
<http://www.nih.gov/news/>
and from Dr. Varmus's home page
<http://www.nih.gov/welcome/director/varmus.htm>.

Tony Mazzaschi
AAMC

LETTER TO SCIENTISTS

Dear Colleague:

The proposal we began circulating four months ago for an electronic
publishing system in the life sciences generated great interest and
intense discussion.  After considering all the suggestions we
received, we have issued a statement on e-publication announcing that
by January 2000, NIH will establish PubMed Central, an electronic
repository for research results in the life sciences.

We think that this new venture, as it grows and evolves, will
ultimately enrich the reading experience, deepen discussion among
scientists, and enhance information flow. Providing barrier-free
access to this literature will enhance significantly our investment 
in
life science research. 

Our statement on e-publishing and PubMed Central is attached.   Thank
you for your comments and interest.  I hope you will help support 
this
new effort. 

Sincerely,
Harold Varmus, M.D.
Director

Attachment

For Release:
August 30,1999

Contact:
Anne Thomas     (301) 496-4461

Note to Reporters and Editors

In a statement today to editors and publishers of scientific journals
and other members of the scientific community, the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) announced its plan to establish a repository for
electronic distribution of primary research reports in the life
sciences.  The new NIH-supported site is to be called PubMed Central. 

It will be integrated with the widely used bibliographic site, PubMed
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/), and is intended to be one of
several repositories in an international system first proposed by 
NIH
Director Harold Varmus, M.D., in May 1999.  According to today's
announcement, PubMed Central will begin receiving, storing, and
distributing content-- including peer-reviewed articles, preprints,
and other screened reports from existing journals, new journals, and
reputable scientific organizations-- in January  2000.

The mission of the NIH is to conduct and support medical research 
and
to disseminate the results of that research widely to the public and
the scientific community.  The NIH  will make use of 
electronic-publishing technology to fulfill the dissemination goal 
by
establishing and maintaining PubMed Central, a  Web-based repository
that will archive, organize, and distribute peer-reviewed reports 
from
journals, as well as reports that have been screened but not formally
peer reviewed.  Screening and peer review of manuscripts will be the
responsibility of scientific publishers, professional societies, and
other groups independent of the NIH.  As a result of the interest 
in
this proposal and the comments from the scientific community, the
scope of the content has been expanded to include the life sciences 
in
general, including plant and agricultural research as well as biology
and medicine. 

"In the four months since we proposed what we then called E-biomed,
we have heard from hundreds of people and have had discussions with
dozens of interested organizations," said  Dr. Varmus.  "Whether the
views support or oppose the proposal, these comments have included
valuable suggestions.  Our focus remains as it was: to make important
research literature available without barriers on the Internet, and 
we
now have a plan for a system that ultimately will enrich the reading
experience, deepen discussions among scientists, and enhance
information flow from the world's investment in life sciences
research," he said. 

Q. and A. about PubMed Central
August 30, 1999

 1.What are the major differences between the original E-biomed
proposal and the system described in the current summary?

The focus of PubMed Central remains as it was, to make the world's
life sciences literature available without barriers on the Internet.
The NIH role has changed. NIH's responsibility will be limited to
maintaining this repository-facilitating the input of the content 
from
submitters, developing technology for presentation and navigation,
developing standards to be used by submitting organizations,
coordinating with repository efforts of international partners, and
archiving the content for the future. All manuscripts will have been
peer reviewed or screened by organizations outside of the NIH. 

The "coverage" of the PubMed Central will be wider than just
biomedical interests and will include the life sciences broadly:
biology, medicine, agricultural and plant sciences.  

We are now using the name PubMed Central as the name of the
repository, based on the repository's natural integration with the
existing PubMed biomedical literature database. PubMed Central is 
the
NIH part of what we hope will be an international network of similar
or "mirror" repositories, creating a system that could called
E-bioscience. 

2. Will there still be an advisory board?  Who will be on that?  How
will members be selected?

We are having discussions with learned societies in the U.S., Europe,
and Asia in efforts to convene a meeting of interested parties to
appoint advisors and establish international policies.

3.  When will the Board be formed?

We are currently involved in ongoing discussions with some
international groups that want to participate.

4.   What will that Board do?

Its initial task will be to establish criteria to certify groups that
may want to submit material to PubMed Central or related international
servers.  As an ongoing task, the Board will assist in ensuring that
PubMed Central evolves and remains responsive to the needs of
researchers, publishers, and the public. 

5.   What is the cost for the NIH?  What does that cover?  Where did
those funds come from?

We estimate that the cost for Fiscal year 2000 will be approximately
$2-3 million. (This is for hardware, software, technology upgrades 
and
maintenance, and the Help Desk and support.) This is a tiny fraction
of the overall cost of journal publishing. 

6.  Will this new system save money?

The goal of PubMed Central is to maximize our investment in
life-science research by making information more available.  Even 
if
no money is saved, there will be a huge gain for science and for the
public.

7.  Who at NIH will be in charge of PubMed Central?

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the
National Library of Medicine, will develop and maintain the
repository. That is the part of the NLM that designed and maintains
the very popular PubMed database.

8.  Will changes be made to PubMed itself?

Yes.  PubMed itself will extend its coverage of the life sciences 
and
continue its linkage to external online journals.

9.  Will PubMed Central include research relating to the behavioral
and social sciences? 

Yes, to the extent that they are in the domain of life sciences
research, and if those journals are interested in being involved (or
if organizations in those disciplines are interested and meet the
criteria for participation.) 

10. Has NIH dropped the notion of having a non-peer reviewed
section?

No.  We never intended to drop that feature.  Papers in this section
will be screened for appropriateness (by groups outside of the NIH)
but not formally peer-reviewed before they are posted.  

11.  Why is it important to have that section?

There is much information useful to scientists that will probably
never be published in peer review journals.  An example might be
"negative" results from clinical trials.  Or experimental techniques
of interest to a small segment of scientists. Or large data sets from
high-throughput biology experiments-especially new methods before 
a
formal database has been established.  We want that information to 
be
available to other scientists.  It will inform their work. 

12. Can individuals submit papers on their own to your new PubMed
Central?

Individuals will have to go through a certified independent group, 
a
journal, or a scientific society, even if they submit articles for 
the
section that is screened but not peer reviewed.  We will try to direct
interested individuals to organizations that are participating in
PubMed Central.

13.  Which organizations and journals are "on board" with what you
are doing and plan to join by submitting material or allowing a
linkage to PubMed Central?

Association of Academic Health Science Libraries.
Frontiers in Bioscience
Association of Research Libraries
Community of Science
Vitek Tracz (Current Science Group)
Scott Plantz, MD emedicine, Inc.
American Society for Cell Biology and their journal,  Molecular
Biology of the Cell.

14. How much resistance/cooperation have you gotten from the "big"
journals?  Do you expect more when people understand how PubMed
Central has evolved from the original proposal?

As the proposal has evolved and the description has been clarified,
we have found that many journals are more receptive to the idea-even
if they are not currently planning to participate.

15.  Can PubMed Central succeed without the big journals?

PubMed Central is not just a repository.  It is a process.  We will
see it develop and change to adapt to new technologies and new
situations.  Publishers and societies that do not join PubMed Central
today will have the opportunity to do so in the future as they see 
the
benefits of this repository

16.  Do you intend that scientists from any nation may submit through
 journals or through scientific societies?  Will all papers be in
English?

Yes.  Scientists from any nation may submit.  All papers must be in
English.

17.  From a "readers" point of view, what do you see as the
benefits?

* Barrier free access to life sciences research.
* The ability to search and navigate across the whole archive of both
present and past papers because the collection will be in a single
community repository.
* The ability to set up a personal "search" tool and actually "build
your own personal journal".   
* The ability to view very large data sets previously unavailable
because they are too large to be included in a printed journal.  
* The ability to view video that cannot be displayed in printed
journals-for example, some scientific efforts in bioimaging.   
* The ability to go to the source to verify-or counter-some of the
information and misinformation that is posted on the Web. For the
first time, the public will have full access to a major corpus of 
life
sciences literature.

18.  How much input from other countries have you gotten on your
various proposals?  Who is "on board" internationally?

We have had discussions with EMBO (European Molecular Biology
Organization) and EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory); the
proposal has been discussed at the World Health Organization, and
researchers from around the world have expressed interest and offered
support.  We expect that governmental and national organizations in
other countries will establish linking, parallel facilities or
repositories.  We have discussed that with some organizations, and 
we
are continuing these discussions.

17.  Has NIH dropped the use of the name "E-bioscience"?  

No, we haven't dropped that nomenclature.  The repository or "server"
at the NIH is called PubMed Central.  However, we envision that in 
the
future there might be other repositories linked together with the 
NIH
repository-possibly in other countries.  Together this system could 
be
called E-bioscience. 

18.  Do you consider that this new version of the proposal is a
capitulation to publishers who were opposed to it?

Publishers raised many of the same issues that were raised by
scientists, members of the public, and even the press.  Many of those
who responded during the comment period offered good suggestions for
solving the problems that were identified, and we have taken those
suggestions.  That was the purpose of the comment period, and it
worked.

20.  What are the benefits to publishers and societies?

More people will see their publications-they will get lots of
traffic.  If their goal is to maximize the use of the scientific
information that they publish, this is clearly a benefit.  In
addition, they will find opportunities for new businesses that build
on the PubMed archive.  Finally, they will have the opportunity to
archive their information without additional cost to them, knowing
that their information will be adapted as the technology changes in
the years ahead.