Origin of Biomedical Digital Libraries

1. Biomedical Digital Libraries (BDL) began as an independent journal published by BioMed Central (BMC) in 2004. Planning for the journal commenced in May 2003, and the first article appeared in September 2004. The interim period involved establishing an editorial board and ensuring a sufficient level of volunteer interest in maintaining the journal. I began as an Associate Editor in 2003, and became co-editor in 2006. Today I am the editor of BDL.

2. BMC is an open access publisher (which was recently acquired by Springer Science+Business Media.) In 2003-2004 many academic librarians purchased institutional memberships in BMC, which enabled anyone affiliated with an academic institution to publish for free or at a reduced cost. This ensured that our journal would have a core author base.

3. Motivation for stating journal:

• Complement-Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA, Open access)
• Competition-Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries (Subscription based)
  
• More prompt peer review than JMLA. (JMLA review speed has increased markedly since 2003)
  
• "Walk the walk, not just talk the talk." Librarians heavily promoted open access journals to faculty members, here was a chance to start one from the ground up.