Revisiting Kent Anderson’s post based on his FOIA request documents show that PubMed Central spends most of its money tagging author manuscripts, and that its stricter rules for NIH authors may double its costs.
New documents show that the Director of the NCBI was deeply involved in getting eLife launched on PubMed Central, that NLM staff were uneasy about the shortcuts taken to make it happen, and that eLife was largely driving the bus throughout.
New evidence suggests that US taxpayers are not the major beneficiaries of the NIH Public Access Policy, and that even within the NIH, there has been some unease about the situation.
New documents obtained via an ongoing FOIA request show that PubMed Central spends most of its money tagging author manuscripts, and that its stricter rules for NIH authors may double its costs.
Conflicts of interest at PubMed Central have been mismanaged, and seem to have led to loading the National Advisory Committee with Wellcome representatives, among other things.
When PubMed Central expedited eLife, PeerJ wondered why. Emails within PMC suggest they were tempted to help PeerJ in the same way. They even talked with eLife about how to handle things.
Circumstantial evidence has become direct evidence — that eLife requested publication in PMC; that PMC collaborated with eLife; that PMC sought to conceal its preferential treatment; and that systems and processes at the NLM regarding PMC inclusion are unclear and open to abuse and misuse.
F1000 Research has confusing review and publication practices, and doesn’t call itself a journal, yet is now going to be indexed by PubMed — further eroding the PubMed brand.