We are proud to announce that PNAS will be a charter participant in PubMed Central, the National Institutes of Health online repository for peer-reviewed primary research reports in the life sciences (see www.PubMedCentral.nih.gov). PNAS research articles will be available on PubMed Central 4 weeks after the print issue cover date.
The benefits of this collaboration are great. Anyone anywhere with Internet access will have barrier-free access to PNAS. This initiative will also make it easier for everyone to read, cite, and teach from PNAS. Technical problems had barred us from providing the journal free online to developing countries, but these problems are removed by release to PubMed Central. For PNAS authors, the number of potential readers is magnified beyond the total of all subscribers to all scientific journals.
We do not anticipate that making PNAS research articles freely available at PubMed Central will lower journal revenue significantly, at least for the first year or two. As a result, we will not pass on extra charges to authors or subscribers. Indeed, our strong economic position has allowed us to substantially cut author page and color charges this year.
We hope you will join us in this exciting initiative in scientific publishing.