‘Nature’ journals now free, as open access gains steam

The public now has unprecedented access to dozens more research journals, including the prestigious Nature, as publisher Macmillan announced that 49 of its titles will be available through a free content-sharing model, writes Jeff John Roberts for Gigaom.

Under the terms of a one-year pilot programme, journal subscribers and media outlets will be able to create links to articles from the journals – which also include Nature Medicine and Nature Genetics – on ReadCube, a platform for viewing and annotating PDFs, and share them with anyone on the web.

“[It] marks an attempt to let scientists freely read and share articles while preserving [Nature Publishing Group or] NPG’s primary source of income – the subscription fees libraries and individuals pay to gain access to articles,” the publisher explained.
Full report on the Gigaom site