Those of you with a background in organic chemistry will recognize the venerable name of Beilstein, originally a handbook of organic chemistry which evolved into a database, later combined with Gmelin inorganic data to form the Crossfire database.
So the Beilstein brand is a powerful one in chemistry. Nanowerk brings to our attention that Beilstein is starting an open-access nanotechnology journal, to include ‘Theoretical aspects and concepts of nanotechnology’, with 2007 Feynman Prize winner Fraser Stoddart on the Advisory Board. From the Beilstein site:
The most important key facts for the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are:
- Open Access
All articles published in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are freely and universally accessible for everyone immediately upon publication: no user registration is required.- No Publication Fee
The publication of articles in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology is free of charge. The journal is published and financed by the Beilstein-Institut and therefore publishing in the journal is offered without the imposition of any author fees or other publication charges.- General Publication Criteria
The main criteria for acceptance of an article for publication in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are high quality, originality, novelty and importance.- Peer Review
All articles published in the journal are fully refereed prior to acceptance. Detailed information about the review process is given in the Instructions for Referees. The Editor-in-Chief or an Associate Editor makes a final decision on the manuscript based on the referees’ recommendations.- No Page Limit
There is no page limit for articles in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology. Authors should provide enough background information to support the aim of study and the main claims of the paper, but unimportant or trivial information should not be included. The article length should be commensurate with its scientific content.- Authors Retain Copyright
Authors retain copyright of their articles. The articles of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.- Detailed Experimental Data
It is the intention of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology to publish articles with detailed descriptions of experimental data and procedures.The Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology offers scientists the unique opportunity to publish their research free of charge in an Open Access scientific journal that is freely available online 365 days a year to any user worldwide.
Between journals such as this, and the University of California’s recent action against the Nature group of publications, the world of scientific publishing is being upended. What do *you* think? —Chris Peterson
