MPS and PLoS Sign Agreement

["Donna Okubo" <dokubo@plos.org>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, 21 August 2008

**Open Access contract with Public Library of Science: MPS and PLoS
agree upon central funding of publication fees**

MPS SCIENTISTS PUBLISH AT PLoS - FREE OF CHARGE FOR THEIR INSTITUTES

In accordance with its commitment to ensure public availability 
of its research output, the Max Planck Society (MPS) has reached 
an agreement with the Public Library of Science (PLoS) for the 
central funding of publication fees of MPS scientists without 
burdening the budget of single Max Planck Institutes.

Like many Open Access journals, PLoS journals charge a fee for 
publication. For papers accepted in PLoS journals after July 1st, 
2008, MPS will pay the publication fee directly to PLoS from 
central funds for all articles where the corresponding author is 
affiliated with a Max Planck Institute.

"PLoS is a top quality Open Access publisher. We are pleased to 
support a seminal publication model with this collaboration and 
thus facilitate publishing for our scientists in this interesting 
spectrum of titles", said Ralf Schimmer, head of the Department 
of Scientific Information Provision of the Max Planck Digital 
Library.

PLoS is a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians 
committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature 
a freely available public resource. PLoS applies the Creative 
Commons Attribution License (CCAL) to all published articles. 
Under the CCAL, authors retain ownership of the copyright for 
their article, but allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, 
modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in PLoS journals, so 
long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission 
is required from the authors or the publishers. Thus, the 
contents of the seven Open Access journals of PLoS are freely 
accessible for the reader worldwide via internet.

COLLABORATION FOR PROMOTING OPEN ACCESS

"The Max Planck Society is one of the world's leading research 
organizations whose researchers have an international reputation 
for scientific excellence. We are delighted to be working with 
MPS so that more MPS researchers will be able to publish their 
work in PLoS journals, and for the broader promotion of Open 
Access to research literature", said Mark Patterson, Director of 
Publishing at PLoS.

The research institutes of the Max Planck Society perform basic 
research in the interest of the general public in the natural 
sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. As 
co-initiator of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to 
Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) MPS has actively 
supported change in scientific publishing in accordance with Open 
Access principles.

MPS is advocating the position that research funding should 
include allocations for making research results freely available.

FURTHER INFORMATION ONLINE

Max Planck Society: http://www.mpg.de
Max Planck Digital Library: http://www.mpdl.mpg.de
PLoS: http://www.plos.org
PLoS Open Access journals: http://www.plos.org/journals/index.php
Berlin Declaration:
http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html

CONTACT

DR. RALF SCHIMMER
Head of the Department of Scientific Information Provision Max Planck
Digital Library Amalienstrasse 33
80799 Munich
Phone: +49 (0)89 38602-256
schimmer@mpdl.mpg.de <mailto:schimmer@mpdl.mpg.de>
http://www.mpdl.mpg.de

DR. CHRISTOPH BRUCH
Head of Open Access Unit
Max Planck Digital Library
Invalidenstrasse 35
10115 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30 2888677-82
bruch@mpdl.mpg.de <mailto:bruch@mpdl.mpg.de> http://www.mpdl.mpg.de

DONNA OKUBO
Institutional Relations Manager
PLoS
185 Berry Street, Suite 3100
San Francisco, CA 94107
Phone: +1 (415) 624-1213
dokubo@plos.org <mailto:dokubo@plos.org> http://www.plos.org

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