In the spring I wrote a column regarding the incredible progress that had been made in the arena of open access.  The National Institutes of Health took another step forward last week when they issued NOT-OD-12-160 which stated they will, "delay processing of non-competing continuation grants if publications arising from that award are not in compliance with the NIH public access policy." The NIH public access policy was enacted in 2008 and it requires final peer-reviewed manuscripts of articles resulting from research funded by NIH to be deposited in the NIH digital archive, PubMed Central (PMC), upon acceptance for publication. The policy also requires that these papers are accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication.

While there are many journals and many publishers who will facilitate depositing the articles, it is the responsibility of the author to make sure the articles are contained within PubMed Central. Even though the policy has been in existence since 2008 there is still some confusion regarding the differences between PubMed Central (the digital archive) and the similarly named PubMed (the database formerly known as Medline).  Conversations with our faculty have confirmed this, with some assuming that because their publications are found within PubMed they are compliant with the public access policy.

We believe this step was taken by NIH because although many authors complied with the policy, many others had not.  After four years of encouraging, educating and cajoling, NIH perhaps decided it was time to get a little tougher and tie compliance to funding.

We also surmise that these types of requirements for the output of NIH funded research will continue and expand to other government agencies funding research.  The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) which has been introduced in Congress, would require that 11 U.S. government agencies funding research make publications resulting from that research publicly available via the Internet (H.R. 4004, S 2096). In addition to the NIH public access policy, it is also important for researchers to note that Section 801 of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act requires the submission of clinical trials information from publicly funded research. 

As always, the Services faculty in the Library can offer consultations and/or classes to help wade through the information regarding these requirements.  Please contact your Library Liaison.

On a positive open access note for our campus, the HS/HSL has subscribed to both BioMedCentral (BMC) and Public Library of Science (PLOS) which will enable our campus authors to publish in the BMC and PLOS journals at a reduced cost. 

More details about the NIH public access issue and the BMC/PLOS subscriptions can be found below.

With best wishes for a remarkable, relaxing, and rewarding holiday season.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced that effective spring 2013 researchers not in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy regarding the deposition of publications resulting from NIH funding into PubMed Central will not receive the next installment of their funding.  NIH intends to hold processing of non-competing continuation awards until recipients have demonstrated compliance and all eligible papers have been received (Notice NOT-OD-12-160, Upcoming Changes to Public Access Policy Reporting Requirements).

The purpose of the Public Access Policy, which went into effect in 2008, is to make results of NIH-funded research freely available by requiring investigators to deposit manuscripts that have been accepted for publication to PubMed Central, a public archive supported by the National Library of Medicine.

Please note that PubMed Central is distinct from the PubMed database. Citation information on all articles is sent by publishers for inclusion in the PubMed database.  However, not all publishers send manuscripts on behalf of the author for inclusion in the PubMed Central archive.  Under the NIH Public Access mandate, it is the responsibility of authors whose articles result from NIH funded research to make sure that their peer-reviewed manuscripts are submitted within 12 months to PubMed Central.

Please contact your Liaison Librarian if you have any questions about the process for submitting your manuscripts or the implications of these changes.

Help make the world’s scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource by publishing in an open access journal. The HS/HSL is a new member of Public Library of Science (PLOS) and BioMed Central (BMC). These memberships provide discounted open-access publishing opportunities for faculty. The PLOS membership allows researchers to receive a 10% discount on publication fees in all its journals: PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, and PLOS ONE.

The HS/HSL’s BioMed Central (BMC) membership agreement allows for a 15% reduction in article processing charges for authors whose articles are accepted for publication. BMC is a publisher of 220 open access, online, peer-reviewed journals. The portfolio of journals spans all areas of biology and medicine and includes broad interest titles such as BMC Biology and BMC Medicine alongside specialist journals such as BMC Genomics and Retrovirology.

For more information about open access publishing, contact Alexa Mayo.

To learn more about the benefits of open access publishing, visit the current exhibit in the Weise Gallery on the Library’s first floor. The exhibit uses media and artifacts to illustrate the rising cost of journals and how these costs inhibit the sharing of scientific and medical research.

Did you know that the HS/HSL licenses the Journal of Comparative Neurology for $29,722 per year, at about the same cost as a 2012 Subaru Forester 2.5XT Touring Sport Utility vehicle?

In support of the MPower initiative, the Health Sciences and Human Services Library, Thurgood Marshall Law Library, and the University of Maryland, College Park Libraries have worked together to increase access to electronic journals and databases on all campuses. New resources that will be available through the HS/HSL in January include:

• American Society of Microbiology Journals (11 additional e-journals)
• Elsevier Science Direct Freedom Collection (1600+ additional e-journals)
• Wiley-Blackwell Full Collection (1100+ additional e-journals)
• Public Library of Science and BioMed Central memberships will provide discounted open-access publishing opportunities for faculty

The Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell collections will extend our coverage in the basic sciences, social sciences, and clinical fields. They include many of the journals requested by faculty and students over the past five years.

The HS/HSL is also licensing the Embase biomedical database and the Wiley Cochrane Library. These important resources will enhance our ability to support systematic reviews.

Effective January 1, 2013, the nine specialty JAMA Archives journals are being renamed. The new titles will be:

• JAMA Dermatology
• JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery
• JAMA Internal Medicine
• JAMA Neurology
• JAMA Ophthalmology
• JAMA Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery
• JAMA Pediatrics
• JAMA Psychiatry
• JAMA Surgery

Library staff are working to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Researchers face the ongoing challenge of distinguishing their research activities from those of others with similar names. How can you attach your identity to your research output as you collaborate across disciplines, institutions, and borders? Consider ORCID, an open, non-profit, community-based effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers.

ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher. Visit ORCID to learn more about ORCID and to register for your unique identifier.

At the Mid-Atlantic Chapter (MAC) of the Medical Library Association’s annual fall meeting two librarians from the HS/HSL were honored with awards. Anna Tatro, Liaison & Outreach Services Librarian, was awarded the MAC 2012 Librarian of the Year Award. Anna was nominated for the award for her work as project manager of Project SHARE (Student Health Advocates Redefining Empowerment). As project manager, Anna’s leadership and dedication has helped to make the program a huge success.

Ryan Harris, Reference and Research Services Librarian, was awarded the 2012 Marguerite Abel Service Recognition Award. This award recognizes a member of MAC who has provided exemplary service to the Chapter during the past year. Ryan served as the chair of the Membership and Recruitment Committee from 2010-2012 where he helped to coordinate the successful Student Vision Program and worked on recruiting initiatives. He also served as Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2012 MLA Quad Chapter Meeting hosted by MAC in Baltimore.

In October, the HS/HSL entered a partnership with the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine New England Region (NER) designed to improve access to health information for DHMH employees. The partnership, part of the Public Health Information Access (PHIA) project funded and managed by NER, seeks to identify trusted resources that are useful to public health workers, affordable, and evidence-based, with an overarching goal of improving public health practice in state public health departments.  Further objectives of PHIA are focused on outcomes assessment, including: reinforcing understanding of NLM’s products and services, expanding access to e-resources, providing use of a citation manager, training in the use of e-resources and tools, providing article delivery, and evaluating the use and knowledge of the provided resources.

This is not the first time HS/HSL and DHMH have worked together to address the information needs of public health workers. In the past, HS/HSL and DHMH have partnered to let DHMH employees use the University of Maryland collection; however licensing agreements prohibited accessing most of HS/HSL’s electronic collections from outside of the Library.  PHIA, with funding from NER, has negotiated contracts with journal and databases vendors for access to a limited but useful set of resources that would otherwise be cost prohibitive.

The HS/HSL will facilitate the program, provide document delivery for articles that are not available electronically, and will provide instruction on the resources made available through the project.  Currently, 11 other state health departments are participating in PHIA, which could expand by three state health departments per year until 2016, when the project ends.  At this end point, the intention is that the data derived from the project will be an aid to departments of public health in including information access in their own budgets.

To plan for enhanced library services for researchers in bioinformatics, library faculty implemented a 14 question online survey in September 2012. The survey received 155 responses from University of Maryland faculty, staff, postdocs and graduate students in the schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The survey assessed need in a variety of areas: data analysis, software tools, online resources, and desired library services.

As indicated by the survey, the most useful services for the HS/HSL to provide are campus-wide licensing of software and training on bioinformatics tools. Of those who had an opinion, 63% identified campus-wide licensing of bioinformatics as a valued library service. About 45% of the respondents indicated that they would use library-offered online training and workshops on bioinformatics tools and software.

To follow up with specific questions from the survey, the project team is conducting focus groups and individual interviews with researchers across the University. These interviews are ongoing and will continue throughout the length of the project, which ends in April 2013. If you are interested in learning more about the results of the survey or in discussing your research needs in bioinformatics, please contact Andrea Goldstein, Liaison and Outreach Librarian to the School of Medicine.

This project is funded through an award from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine/Southeastern Atlantic Region.

Andrea Goldstein, MLIS, Liaison and Outreach Librarian to the School of Medicine, and Ryan Harris, MLIS, Reference and Research Librarian, attended the BioMedical Informatics course at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole this year. The course is a weeklong survey of current topics in biomedical informatics. This year’s topics included human-computer interaction, big data, natural language processing, telemedicine, and clinical research informatics, as well as a substantial focus on electronic health records and meaningful use.

The BioMedical Informatics course is open to medical educators and administrators, physicians, and medical librarians.  Applications for 2013 sessions in May and September are now available.  They are due on January 11, 2013.