Free Access to Life Science Information

Journal is the most formal communication channel of scientific research. Recently, the web technology and the periodical price inflation are changing the ways of scientific communication. The U. S. National Institute of Health (NIH) set up a PubMed Central (PMC) repository, and urged journal publishers to deposit their materials in PMC to provide free online access to the full text of life science research articles. This paper introduces the E-biomed, Public Library of Science, and PMC web sites in life sciences, and discusses the opinions of debates on free access. PMC is expected to balance the interests of authors, publishers, and libraries. [Article content in Chinese]