Yale dumps BioMed Central

Yale University's science and medicine libraries have decided to discontinue their membership to BioMed Central (BMC), an open access publishing company, citing skyrocketing membership costs in a public statement issued last Friday (Aug 3).The Cushing/Whitney Medical and Kline Science Libraries at Yale have been members of BMC since 2003. The libraries have covered the costs of membership on behalf of the university and its researchers but can no longer absorb membership fees that have grown in excess of $30,000 over the past year, Kenny Marone, director of the medical library, told The Scientist. "The library paying for faculty publishing has not been supported by the institution, we haven't been given additional money for this," Marone said. "If we have to make cuts this becomes one of the first things we cut." Marone added that while the libraries supported open access publishing, some of the costs should be absorbed by...