Why is PLoS launching journals?
Access to the vast majority of scientific and medical literature is currently restricted to those individuals and institutions that can afford to pay for subscriptions. Even though the vast majority of the research is publicly financed, access to research literature—the product of that research—is not freely and publicly available. Even institutions find it increasingly difficult to provide access to all the journals that their communities need. The Internet makes it possible to provide access to the literature to anyone in the world who has an Internet connection. PLoS is launching open access journals based on a new generalizable business model, as a decisive step toward the goal of universal open access.
