Nature to aid open access

Nature Publishing Group will begin depositing manuscripts into PubMed Central six months after publication on behalf of authors, starting later this summer, according to a release. But some open access publishing advocates say this is just a way for the publisher to maintain an embargo period, rather than making content immediately available. Earlier this year the National Institutes of Health linkurl:issued a mandate;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54028/ that required all biomedical research papers sponsored by NIH funds to be deposited in PubMed Central within 12 months of publication. Many publishing groups have linkurl:objected;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54442/ to this mandate, saying that it violates their copyrights and publishing models. David Hoole, head of content licensing and brand marketing at Nature, told The Scientist that the free service is meant to help authors comply with the NIH mandate. Authors will decide whether to have Nature deposit for them into PubMed Central during the article submission process. Nature has assembled...