Authors Are in Compliance with NIH Policy

Effective April 2008, the NIH initiated a policy requiring that all investigators funded by the NIH either submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. Authors of ASM journal articles are automatically in compliance with this policy and need take no action themselves.

For the past several years, the ASM has deposited in PubMed Central all publications from all ASM journals. Further, ASM policy, effective for the past several years, is that all primary ASM literature is made available to everyone free (open access) 6 months after publication through PubMed Central, Highwire, Google, and international PubMed Central-like repositories. All review articles, published quarterly, are available through these venues 12 months after publication. By having initiated these policies, the ASM is in full compliance with NIH policy.