Online access to 1000 journals in 70 developing countries now affordable

Health researchers in 70 developing countries now have Internet access free or at greatly reduced rates to over 1000 biomedical journals, through the Health InterNetwork website: www.healthinternetwork.net. The arrangement, which came into effect on 31 January, is the result of a proposal made by WHO and the BMJ to the six biggest publishers of medical journals: Blackwell's, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health and Science, Springer Verlag, and John Wiley. The aim was to find a more affordable pricing structure for online access to their international biomedical journals. Until this change, subscriptions to these journals, whether in print or electronically, had been priced uniformly for all institutions, irrespective of geographical location. At the average annual cost of several hundred dollars per journal, that put most of them beyond the reach of most health and research institutions in the poorest countries. WHO and the publishers are working with the Open Society Institute of the Soros foundation and other partners to extend the initiative, for instance through training, and improving Internet connectivity.