In this time of pandemic, once ordinary medical resources have taken on greater importance, from simple thermometers to sophisticated ventilators.
Most highly prized of all may be peer-reviewed research and carefully curated information. Indeed, immediate access to research findings and reliable news sources can make a critical difference for individuals and entire nations.
In an effort to contribute to the common good, leading scientific news, trade, education and business publishers are offering open-to-read access to a deep pool of content on topics related to the novel virus and the COVID-19 disease pandemic it is creating.
Last week, CCC published an alphabetical list of links to this important content on our Website. CCC will support this roll call of responsible publishing through our own social media channels to give it the greatest possible reach for individuals, academic researchers, commercial scientists and students.
Publishing Perspectives Editor-in-Chief Porter Anderson recently reported on how leading publishers across the scholarly publishing ecosystem have enlisted in this volunteer army of knowledge sharing. I spoke with him about this effort on CCC’s Beyond the Book podcast.
https://beyondthebookcast.com/publishers-putting-research-information-to-work-against-covid-19/
“This is a moment for publishing not only to worry about what’s going to happen to its own business, but also to look at what publishing can do to help,” Anderson said. “What’s playing out here is another example of the international publishing business engaging in responses to the mushrooming coronavirus emergency.”
As one noteworthy example, Anderson cited the Novel Coronavirus Information Center for COVID-19, Elsevier’s free health and medical research on novel coronavirus (COVID-19)
“Elsevier has its own repository up and running, and is going ahead and contributing everything in that to PubMed Central,” he explained. “There are more than 19,500 articles, primarily from the journals Cell and The Lancet. It’s terrific to see.”
In addition, Anderson noted that Association of American Publishers CEO Maria Pallante issued a related statement on March 13. “In this urgent and serious environment, we are grateful to the many publishers who are doing their part to communicate valuable discoveries, analyses, and data as quickly as possible, including by making their copyrighted articles pertaining to the virus freely available for public use during this crisis, in both text and machine-readable formats,” AAP’s Pallante declared.
“I have to say the stories we’re doing right now on this are going through the ceiling in terms of readership,” Anderson observed. “Even for a situation as grave as this, it’s marvelous to see that people are curious, people are looking for the information. It’s good to see this level of curiosity. And I hope that means that they’re taking this situation very seriously.”
Read the full transcript here.