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The Public Library of Science (PLoS), a nonprofit organization of scientists committed to making scientific and medical literature a public resource, is pleased to announce that we have established a nonprofit scientific publishing venture and that we will be publishing our first open-access journal, PLoS Biology, in October 2003.

The PLoS journals will be governed and operated by scientists, and these publications will retain all of the important features of scientific journals, including rigorous peer review and high editorial and production standards. The journals will employ a new publishing model that will allow PLoS to make all published works immediately available online, with no charges for access and no restrictions on subsequent redistribution or use. PLoS has already assembled an outstanding academic editorial board and a first-class professional editorial team. We began accepting manuscript submissions for PLoS Biology on May 1, 2003.

As an open-access journal publisher, we will provide the online versions of all our journals free of charge to anyone with Internet access, but we also intend to offer a paper version for those who wish to pay for that. Distribution of the paper copy will follow a traditional subscription model, although the price for subscription will be as close to cost for printing and mailing as possible. We have set the subscription price for 2004 at $160/year, which includes shipping. This is the subscription price for both the United States and the rest of the world. The subscription comprises all 12 issues published in 2004 as well as the three issues (October, November, and December) that will appear in 2003.

If you would like a sample copy of PLoS Biology or if you wish to subscribe to the print version of the journal, please either contact us directly at subscriptions@plos.org to add your names to our database or complete our subscription form, found at http://www.plos.org/journals/biology/pbio_subscribe.pdf.

Additional information about the Public Library of Science, as well as copies of the Call for Papers for PLoS Biology, may be found at our website, www.plos.org.

Rick Johnson, Enterprise Director
SPARC * The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition
21 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036 USA
Tel + 202 296 2296 x157 / Fax + 202 872 0884
E-mail rick@arl.org * http://www.arl.org/sparc

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