There’s a new journal in town and it’s called PeerJ with a subject focus on biological and medical sciences.  What makes this open access journal and its companion, PeerJ PrePrints so different is their membership model – this one’s for life!  There are three pricing plans which include Basic, Enhanced, and Investigator, and each one offers a different level targeted to a specific audience – Graduate Students, Post-Docs, and Lab Heads or High-Volume Authors. Having a membership will not guarantee publication; all articles must go through peer review and meet a basic standard of scientific quality. Continue reading →

While at the Medical Library Association conference this May, an impromptu forum was organized by the Public Library of Science (PLoS) focused on sharing and soliciting feedback regarding author-level metrics. Like-minded attendees were invited to hear and comment about enhancing the post-publication peer-review process to include other ways to gauge the value of a scientific paper and its impact within the scientific community.

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The annual Medical Library Association (MLA) conference took place this year in Seattle from May 18 until May 23. This year’s theme was “Growing Opportunities: Changing our Game” and attendees went into extra innings as the program was jammed packed with sessions to suit all types of players.

The conference opened with Steven Johnson best-selling author of seven books on the intersection of science, technology, and personal experience. His talk regarding where good ideas come from and innovative thinking set the tone for the rest of the meeting (at least for me).  As a side note, Mr. Johnson has also given several TED talks with the same theme. So for those who didn’t attend the meeting, you still have an opportunity to check out his past performances. Continue reading →