Royal Society & Scientific American Historical Archives Available!

The digital age has made many things possible that we never even dreamed of!  Because of new technologies, we are able to turn the pages of books at the British Library and use our iPads to browse unique collections at the New York Public Library.  Now, thanks to nature.com's new offerings, we are able to view Isaac Newton's first published scientific paper, Charles Darwin's early work, and Benjamin Franklin's firsthand account of his kite experiment, among other similar treasures.

Last week, the Royal Society announced that its historical journal archive (which includes the FIRST EVER peer-reviewed journal) is now permanently available online.  For FREE.  You can read the original press release here.  The archives opened yesterday, November 1, which means that you can now browse this treasure trove of history and knowledge.  The press release notes that the announcement was made to coincide with Open Access Week, an initiative that I blogged a bit about last year.

Image from The Royal Society

Furthermore, through the end of November, you can also access the Scientific American historical archive, which goes back as far as 1845.  Starting at the beginning of December, that content will only be available if an institution has purchased a site license for it, but you can browse it now, for free.  Access the archives here:  http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/archive/index.html.

The Open Poster Repository for Biology and Medicine

The Faculty of 1000 has created a (relatively) new open access repository of posters from across the life sciences and medicine:  the Open Poster Repository for Biology & Medicine.  In this free resource, you can both view and deposit research posters--an opportunity to discuss research with a much, much wider audience.

The website for this repository suggests several benefits of sharing research posters:

• Often, scientific research presented in posters is essentially lost after the conference is over; a repository like this ensures that wide access to the posters continues
• Scientific posters often discuss new findings before any publication is developed or becomes available
• The discussion generated by posted posters may help researchers further develop and improve their work
• Sharing this type of work may help reduce research duplications

Again, you can both contribute to and benefit from this repository--check it out!