Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community
Issue: Volume 18, Number 1 / March 2005
Pages: 45 - 50
URL: Linking Options
Open access to the medical literature: How much content is available in published journals?
Marie E McVeigh A1 and James K Pringle A2
A1 Thomson Scientific 3501 Market Street Philadelphia PA 19104 USA +1-215-386-0100 Ext. 1105 marie.mcveigh@thomson.com http://www.thomson.com/scientific
A2 Thomson Scientific 3501 Market Street Philadelphia PA 19104 USA +1-215-386-0100 Ext. 1485 james.pringle@thomson.com http://www.thomson.com/scientific
Abstract:
To understand how much of the published medical journal literature is currently openly available from publishers, we studied 174 journal titles in research and clinical medicine from Thomson Scientific's ISI Citation Databases. Nearly one third of the journals studied have some or all of their recent content freely available through the journal's web site. Forty-six journals (26%) offered their most recent content immediately available without charge; an additional 12 journals (7%) make all content available within a specified period after initial publication. We also considered content back to 1992, a file depth approximately twice the cited half-life of the journals in aggregate. Although 93% of the journals have their current issue and one or more back years available electronically, we estimated that less than 60% of article content since 1992 is electronically available and 21% is open access (OA). Considering other paths to OA (partial open access or e-print archives) would increase this percentage.
Click here for the full text version of this article
