Scientific literature

The Free Medical Journals Site is dedicated to the promotion of free access to medical journals over the Internet. Over the next few years, many important medical journals will be available online, free and in full-text. The access to free scientific knowledge will have a major impact on medical practice and attract Internet visitors to these journals. Journals that restrict access to their Web sites will lose popularity.

INASP is a cooperative network of partners that was established in 1992. Its mission is to enhance the flow of scientific and scholarly information within and between countries, especially those with less developed systems of publication and dissemination. 'INASP Health Links' is seen to be a short-term contribution to help address the increasing demand in developing and transitional countries for easy access to relevant, reliable health information on the Internet.

INASP - International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications. INASP-Health is a cooperative network for organizations concerned with improving access to reliable information for health professionals in resource-poor countries.

AMEDEO’s core components include weekly emails with bibliographic lists about new scientific publications, personal Web pages for one-time download of available abstracts, and an overview of the medical literature published in relevant journals over the past 12 to 24 months. All these new information resources are free of charge.

A medical portal is the logical next step What a remarkable year it has been for those of us monitoring changes in the global information landscape. Since last Christmas, there has been a flurry of activity: the digitisation of the world's libraries began in earnest (despite the copyright fracas) open access publishing gained much-needed support internationally (especially in science and medicine) and Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo introduced a number of customisation tools for desktops and mobiles, podcasts, blogs, and video searches.1 2

This Congress, organized by JAMA and the BMJ Publishing Group, will feature 3 days of presentations of original research. As before, we urge scientists, editors, publishers, and readers who are interested in the processes by which science is published to get going on their research. The aim is to improve the quality and credibility of biomedical information and to help advance the efficiency, effectiveness, and equitability of information dissemination throughout the world. For more information contact Annette Flanagin phone: 312-464-2432 e-mail: jama-peer@jama-archives.org.