Nature to make many articles widely available

I would not exactly call it a Christmas present, but today I happened to learn of a press release circulated by the Nature Publishing Group on December 2 of this year. The press release was not exactly a model of clarity, but if I understand it correctly, subscribers to any of a number of the publishing group’s journals can legitimately make articles available to individual colleagues who are not subscribers. In addition, readers of “100 media outlets and blogs … will be able to provide their own readers with a link to a full text, read-only view of the original scientific paper.”

Recognizing that “researchers are already sharing content, often in hidden corners of the Internet or using clumsy, time-consuming practices,” Nature has decided to “present a new way to conveniently share and disseminate this knowledge using technology from one of our innovative and disruptive divisions – Digital Science – to provide a real solution to the global problem of how to efficiently and legitimately share scientific research for the benefit of all.”

I consider this development very welcome indeed.