OCLC Online Computer Library Center today announced its partnership with BioOne, the new web-based aggregation of research in the biological, ecological and environmental sciences launching April 2. Under the terms of the agreement, OCLC contributes funds for the development of BioOne’s database and becomes the exclusive distributor of BioOne journals outside the United States and Canada. OCLC will make BioOne accessible internationally beginning in June. Amigos Library Services distributes BioOne in the United States and Canada.
The BioOne journals will be available outside the United States and Canada in the OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online service. OCLC will also serve as one of the archive sites for BioOne content.
“In May 1999, the OCLC Users Council passed a resolution encouraging OCLC to support the development of initiatives, such as BioOne, that create alternatives to the current costly systems of publishing peer-reviewed scientific, technical, medical and other information,” said Phyllis B. Spies, vice president of OCLC Worldwide Library Services. “Through OCLC’s partnership with BioOne, societies in the biological, ecological and environmental sciences will be able to introduce their journals to a broader international library market and take the important step of moving to the web. Libraries will gain long-term access to high-quality, peer-reviewed journals at reasonable prices.”
“OCLC’s proven track record makes it our first choice to distribute BioOne outside of the United States and Canada,” said Heather Joseph, president andCOO of BioOne. “We are confident that OCLC can quickly reach a broad rangeof institutions overseas, and its contribution to the development effort is an important factor in ensuring BioOne maximizes its readership, benefitting researchers and libraries alike.”
BioOne is an electronic aggregation of information resources in the biological, ecological and environmental sciences. It is being developed by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), the University of Kansas, the Big 12 Plus Libraries Consortium, and Allen Press. When launched on April 2, 2001, BioOne will offer a broad selection of 40 highly cited, peer-reviewed journals. These journals include American Midland Naturalist (University of Notre Dame), Annals of the ESA (Entomological Society of America), Ambio (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), BioScience (American Institute of Biological Sciences), American Zoologist (Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology), Photochemistry and Photobiology (American Society for Photobiology), and Wetlands, among many others. BioOne increases functionality of participating journals and enhances services to scientific society members, especially with its reference linking, broad distribution and library-friendly pricing. For more information: http://www.BioOne.org.
Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is anonprofit organization that provides computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing and preservation services to 38,000 libraries in 76 countries and territories. OCLC was founded in 1967 to improve access to the world’s information and reduce information costs, and conducts ongoing research to develop technologies to support that mission. Forest Press, a division of OCLC since 1988, publishes the Dewey Decimal Classification system. Pica is based in Leiden, the Netherlands, and provides cataloging, interlibrary loan and local and end-user services to hundreds of libraries in the Netherlands, France and Germany. More information about OCLC and OCLC regional service partners is available on the web: http://www.oclc.org.