2024 Annual Report
Twenty-Five Years of Collaboration
BioOne celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2024, and throughout the year reflected on the remarkable journey of this innovative library-publisher collaboration. Since its founding in 1999, BioOne has returned over $78 million to its community of publishing partners, creating a vibrant and sustainable home for independent nonprofit publishing in the biological sciences.
While celebrating our past, we’ve also focused on the future, expanding BioOne’s horizons in numerous ways. Building on the successful launch of the new eBooks program in 2023, BioOne expanded its partnership with CSIRO Publishing to create the CSIRO Publishing BioSelect Collection—adding more than 200 specialized eBooks to the BioOne Digital Library.
BioOne’s Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot, launching in January 2026, offers a path to Open Access for 71 titles from 54 societies, museums, and research organizations across 12 countries. Throughout 2024, we worked to solidify these publisher partnerships while sustaining the critical support of BioOne’s library community. This initiative represents BioOne’s continued commitment to increasing access, sustainably and equitably, to independent scientific research.
Today, the BioOne Digital Library reaches 3,500 libraries and institutions across 126 countries. As we look to the future, we remain dedicated to the vision that brought us together—creating innovative pathways for shared knowledge that balance the needs of all stakeholders in the scholarly ecosystem.
With gratitude for your continued support,
ALAN H. SAVITZKY, PhD.
Chair of the Board of Directors
LAUREN KANE
President/CEO
Our Mission
BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research.
BioOne explores economic models and strategic partnerships that balance the needs of all stakeholders, and currently demonstrates this balance by offering financially sustainable information services in the biological sciences. BioOne supports best practices that increase operational effectiveness and technological standards that integrate its content with a global network of scholarly exchange.
BioOne Celebrates Our History and Looks to the Future
BioOne’s community of nonprofit publishers is dedicated to informing and inspiring this generation of scientists – and the next. We invite you to explore some of their most impactful work in this special 25th anniversary collection.
Subscribe to Open Continues Drives Innovation and Collaboration
Our 25th anniversary is more than a milestone, it is a promise to continue our innovative approach to scholarly communications. The idea for BioOne was both visionary and practical: collaborate to create a new aggregation model and content collection which would balance the needs of all stakeholders. By banding together and applying economies of scale, libraries could effectively bring essential biosciences research to their users, and publishers could offset the costs of online dissemination thanks to the equitable reinvestment of subscription revenues.
As we celebrated our past achievements throughout 2024, we also laid the foundation for the next era of collaborative impact. BioOne’s Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot adapts our aggregation model to meet the current need of publishers, librarians, funders and researchers for greater openness in scientific communication. To prepare for the 2026 launch, BioOne worked closely with our publishing community, gaining the commitments of 71 titles from 54 publishing partners – marking the largest number of independent publishers under a single S2O offer to date. Over the course of the year, we also migrated hundreds of library subscriptions onto the calendar year, a necessary operational shift which would not have been possible without the cooperation of our longtime library and consortia partners. Following the October 2024 announcement of the pilot cohort, 2025 brings a formal rollout to the library community to secure commitments for the 2026 subscription term.
Caribbean Journal of Science has historically served authors and readers from a wide range of Latin American and Caribbean countries. Many are from small nations in which the funding for scientific research is limited. The trend towards "pay-to-publish" has increasingly priced many authors working in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and elsewhere, out of publishing in open access journals. As editor of the Caribbean Journal of Science, I am thrilled to have been invited to participate in BioOne's Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot project. I anticipate that this will be the first opportunity for many of our authors to publish an open access article in an international, indexed journal. The S2O program promises to meet the income needs of the journal, while maximizing the exposure and availability of our author's work.
Benjamin van Ee Smit
Editor, Caribbean Journal of Science
Just as we did 25 years ago, BioOne is collaborating with both publishers and librarians on a solution designed to maximize access to research while ensuring economic sustainability. In 1999 individual societies found it challenging to convert from print to online, and today those same publishers wish to realize the benefits of open access. BioOne is proud to be agents of this shift for the benefit of the worldwide biosciences community.
25 Years of Community Impact
As BioOne is poised to write the next chapter in our history of innovation, the numbers demonstrate the impact of our mission to serve researchers, support independent publishers, and deliver value to libraries.
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Journals and eBooks
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Publishing societies, museums, research institutes, and independent presses
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Returned to publishing partners
since 2001
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Lower price than the commercial average for biological sciences journals
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Worldwide average cost per download
“I believe it was soon after I came on board that the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians (AAZV) engaged with BioOne. It immediately started to make a difference in our organization, and over the years our partnership allowed us to rely less on membership dues to keep the Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine (JZWM) ‘in the black.’ We could not have made these advances with our journal had it not been for BioOne and your continued support for the Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine”
Robert Hilsenroth, DVM
Executive Director
American Association of Zoo Veterinarians
The BioOne DIGITAL LIBRARY
The BioOne Digital Library stands as a powerful embodiment of our mission to create a truly collaborative scholarly ecosystem. By providing a dedicated platform for 150+ nonprofit scientific society publishers, we amplify the reach of specialized research in critical scientific domains—from ecology and environmental sciences to zoology and biodiversity conservation studies.
The publishing world has changed dramatically over the last 20 years or so. We have changed from a printed journal, distributed by mail, to an exclusively online publication. The challenges to keep up with technical requirements of an online journal are daunting to our small team. We are grateful to BioOne, which has assisted us in our journey.
Benny Bytebier
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of East African Natural History
Our approach goes beyond simple content aggregation to embrace the responsibility of effective dissemination of research to bioscientists worldwide. Through distribution of journals and eBooks, we ensure that vital scientific research from independent societies and publishers reaches global audiences, supporting fields that might otherwise struggle to find visibility. Throughout 2024, we continued to ensure that BioOne is able to meet the evolving requirements of researchers and libraries via key platform enhancements, including those needed to support Subscribe to Open and expanded eBook content.
BioOne Complete
Connecting Researchers to Critical Content
BioOne Complete is our flagship collection of subscribed and open access titles. Since the aggregation’s launch in 2001, we’ve focused on making bioscience research widely available while providing sustainable revenue to nonprofit publishers.
Since working with BioOne, the number of articles published has almost tripled and the income has provided financial stability for fifteen years.
Carlos A. Blanco
Co-editor
Southwestern Entomologist
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Articles available
in BioOne Complete
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Articles Published
in 2024
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Of titles have
an Impact Factor
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Of net subscription revenue
returned to publishers
Titles in BioOne Complete
Interdisciplinary Research
- Agriculture & Agronomy
- Ecology
- Environmental Sciences
- Geology & Paleontology
- Ornithology
- Veterinary Sciences
- Biodiversity Conservation
- Entomology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Marine & Freshwater Biology
- Plant Sciences
- Zoology
BioOne eBooks
In 2023 we launched the BioOne eBooks program with the ESA eBook Collection, and in 2024 we partnered with CSIRO Publishing to create the CSIRO Publishing BioSelect Collection—over 200 eBooks covering environmental, plant, and animal sciences.
This specialized collection draws from CSIRO Publishing’s extensive catalog, specifically selected to complement BioOne’s areas of focus and meet the needs of our library community. Covering diverse content relevant to environmental, plant, and animal scientists, the collection represents decades of trusted knowledge, featuring unique Australian species alongside research with global applications. With this addition, the BioOne Digital Library now hosts more than 360 eBooks over two collections, serving researchers with expanded resources and our publishers with a new avenue of dissemination.
We are pleased to be expanding our relationship with BioOne to now include an eBook Collection. This collection represents not only unique Australian flora and fauna but also globally relevant conservation science and applications. We are thrilled to see these titles reach a wide audience through this partnership with BioOne.
Briana Melideo
Books Publisher
CSIRO Publishing
Global Distribution and Impact
Through strategic collaborations and a commitment to accessibility, BioOne ensures that vital scientific research reaches a global audience. 3,500 libraries and institutions across 126 countries access the BioOne Digital Library. We work with over 40 library consortia, helping 80% of our subscribing libraries manage their licensing efficiently. Through Research4Life, we provide no-cost access to BioOne Complete readers in more than 80 countries.
In 2024, we welcomed 21 new library partners and participated in conferences worldwide to share our mission of equitable access to research.
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Countries accessing
BioOne Complete
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Accessing libraries and institutions
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Library consortia
Countries with
Accessing Institutions
“Lyrasis’s partnership with BioOne has significantly enriched our member community by offering cost-effective access to high-impact, peer-reviewed research in biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. Through BioOne’s aggregation of content from diverse independent and nonprofit publishers, our members gain access to varied perspectives and high-quality research that supports their research, teaching, and learning needs.”
Sharla Lair
Senior Strategist, Open Access & Scholarly Communication Initiatives
Lyrasis
BioOne Ambassador Award
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Awarded to early career researchers
since 2018
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Downloads of Ambassador Award
winning research
Since 2018, we’ve awarded $35,000 to early career researchers who excel at communicating their work to broader audiences. The BioOne Ambassador Awards recognize scientists who can explain complex research in ways that encourage greater scientific literacy and aid in the broader understanding of our natural world. 2024 brought 40 nominations from 19 publishing partners.
Being a BioOne Ambassador gave me confidence. It was nice to know that people believed in me and my work. Particularly for my project, I sat and looked at blood films for many years for all of these sea lions and fur seals, so it was really cool to see that people cared about my work and that it really can make an impact.
Dr. Sarah Wright
2024 BioOne Ambassador
Featured Content Collections
Curated article collections remained a pillar of our strategy to amplify the impact of BioOne publisher content. In 2024, BioOne Vista, Top & Trending Research, and our special content collections featured over 360 articles from over 150 partner journals. These collections help researchers discover work outside their immediate field and speak to the interdisciplinary nature of research.
BioOne content collections also surfaced research addressing current issues including ecological impacts of tourism to fire ecology and traditional ecological knowledge.
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Full-text article downloads
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Increase in researchers accessing articles through content collections
BioOne Connect
A New Resource for BioOne Publishing Partners
BioOne is often asked by our publishers for advice regarding workflow systems or publishing services that are outside our scope of work, and in 2024 we created BioOne Connect to answer this need. This new marketplace is designed to help our publishers discover potential partners and gain access to cost-effective publishing and workflow services not otherwise provided by BioOne through the BioOne Digital Library. This new program provides BioOne publishers with access to a vetted list providers who have agreed to offer services at preferred rates and with the needs of small, independent society publishers in mind.
Collaboration starts with the introduction of like-minded partners, and via BioOne Connect our publishers now have access to an expanded network of trusted collaborators who can help them advance their publishing programs.
Honoring Board Service
James F. Williams II Retires After 20+ Years of Board Service
Jim Williams joined the BioOne Board of Directors when digital publishing was still uncertain territory. As he described it, “It was a very scary time for research journals. Many were either dying or moving to electronic format. We wanted to help those journals survive and move forward in the digital age.” As Jim steps down from the board, we are grateful for his wisdom and the practical guidance that helped transform BioOne from a startup into a respected collaborative.
As Jim steps down from the board, we’re grateful for his years of service and the practical vision he brought to our work.
Financial Report
2024 was again a solid financial year for BioOne despite the market softening for one-time sales and signs of instability to come. In 2024, BioOne achieved a total net sales income of $7,710,754, an incremental 0.5% increase over 2023. Robust renewal performance of 95% and controlled operating expenses allowed for the continued distribution of 64% of BioOne Complete net revenue back to participating publishers.
2024 Total Revenue
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2024 Total Publisher Consideration
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BioOne Revenue & Reinvestment
BioOne’s 2024 Audited Financial Statements and Form 990 are available on the BioOne website.
Leadership
2024 Board of Directors
Alan Savitzky, Chair
Catherine Murray-Rust, Treasurer
Joni Blake*, Secretary
Raym Crow*
Taran Grant
Robbie Hart
Chris Makowski
Eric S. Nagy*
Kamran Naim
Mira Waller
James F. Williams, II
Ans ter Woerds
2024 Staff
Lauren Kane
Beth Hutchins
Christine Orr
Chelsea Tharp
Maggie Grasseschi
Cheryl Greer
Meredith Pond
Amanda Rogers
BioOne is an innovative nonprofit collaborative and the leading content aggregator in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. More than 150 global scientific societies and nonprofit publishing organizations include their journals in BioOne’s flagship product, BioOne Complete, for the benefit of 5,500 accessing institutions and millions of researchers worldwide. Since 2001, BioOne has returned more than $83 million in royalty sharing back to its participants, with a commitment to share research more broadly, equitably, and sustainably.