PLoS e-Newsletter for Institutional Members

Happy New Year!

Last year was an exciting one for PLoS. Through the continued support of our members and the addition of new ones, we have grown to over 170 Institutional Members worldwide.

Renew your membership for 2006!

Table of Contents:

1. New for 2006
2. A Year in Review - PLoS 2005
3. PLoS Editorial Board Update
4. PLoS Journals in the News
5. PLoS Out and About: Calendar of Conferences and Meetings PLoS Will be Attending
6. Open Access News and Resources: Look at What Others Are Doing in Open Access
7. Feedback or Comments?

1. New for 2006

PLoS Clinical Trials - Now Accepting Submissions!

The newest journal due to launch in late Spring 2006. PLoS Clinical Trials will be an innovative forum devoted to peer-reviewing and publishing reports of randomized clinical trials in all areas of healthcare. Visit PLoS Clinical Trials to find out more and download materials to distribute to your faculty.

Read the editorial published in PLoS Medicine: Tackling Publication Bias in Clinical Trial Reporting

2. A Year in Review - PLoS 2005

Impact Factor

PLoS Biology received its first Impact Factor from the ISI of 13.9, placing it #1 among general Biology journals, above the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and the EMBO Journal, both well established journals published by prestigious scientific organizations.

PLoS Stats

Unique Users

The number of unique users visiting our journal web sites, every month, as identified by their IP addresses, has more than doubled in 2005, from approximately 74,000 in January to over 160,000 in December (aggregated for all journals).

Downloads

PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine papers were downloaded over 180,000 times (full paper downloads, not just hits) in December 2005. The Community Journals' usage stats are also growing nicely, with PLoS Computational Biology receiving nearly 22,000 hits in December, just six months after its launch.

PLoS articles have garnered wide media coverage in the U.S. and internationally. The ability to quickly publish open access quality research articles allows for broader dissemination. PLoS articles are routinely discussed in popular press including: New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, NPR, Guardian, and BBC.

3. PLoS Editorial Board Update

New Editorial Board Members

PLoS Pathogens
Kasturi Haldar, Northwestern University, has been appointed Deputy Editor

PLoS Computational Biology
Anna Tramantano, University of Rome
Patricia (Patsy) Babbitt, University at California, San Francisco

4. PLoS Journals in the News

PLoS Biology article: Reproduction and Longevity of Guppies

PLoS Medicine article: Older Women with Breast Cancer Survive Less

PLoS Biology article: Singing Mice

PLoS Biology Makes It Into the Guardian's Top Ten Science Stories of 2005

From the Journals

Hear the Interview with PLoS Medicine authors at Kaiser

New Journal Publishing Models'
CIBER, an independent think tank based at University College London

Interview with Professor Roberts by Richard Poynder
Nobel Laureate, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Editorial Board Member, PLoS Biology Professor Roberts explains why he signed the recent open letter calling on the Royal Society to support Open Access.

5. PLoS Out and About

January 30-31, Stockholm
United Nations meeting on "Malaria and Neglected Tropical Disease Quick-Impact Initiative" at the Nobel Forum. PLoS Medicine is publishing a paper on January 30th and the authors will discuss their paper at a press conference at that meeting

April 1-5, 2006, San Francisco, CA
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)
Come visit us at booth #238

April 21-22, Lund, Sweden
The 1st European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine and Medicine

April 24-25, Lund, Sweden
Third Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communication
Beyond Declarations - The Changing Landscape of Scholarly Communication
Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing, will present on a panel titled "Open Access Infrastructure"

April 29-May 2, 2006, San Francisco, CA
Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Annual Meeting
Come visit us at our booth!

May 19-24, 2006, Phoenix, AZ
Medical Librarians Association (MLA)
Come visit us at our booth!

May 22nd, 2006, Tampa, FL
Council of Science Editors Annual Meeting
"Open Knowledge and Human Welfare"
Calestous Juma (PLoS Board of Directors)
Professor of the Practice of International Development
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

August 13-18, 2006, Toronto, Canada
AIDS2006
Come visit us at our booth!

August 31- September 3, 2006, Asuncion, Paraguay
2006 FELSOCEM Annual Meeting in Asuncion, Paraguay.
FELSOCEM is the Latin American Federation of Medical Student Scientific Societies.
Gavin Yamey, PLoS Medicine, Magazine Editor, will hold a workshop on open access and on medical writing.

6. Open Access News and Resources

Open Access Primer Available from Medical Library Association

NIH ToolKit - Association of Academic Health Science Libraries (AAHSL)
This resource is designed to organize and present information about NIH Public Access Initiative

Open Access Program: SPARC
A resource for librarians and administrators creating events to promote open access among faculty members. Why recreate the wheel!

Peter Suber: Open Access

7. Feedback or Comments?

We would love to hear from you! Contact Donna Okubo, Institutional Relations Manager at dokubo@plos.org.

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