Nisha Doshi's blog

The Arcadia Project is a three-year programme based at the University of Cambridge (UK), which aims to explore the role of academic libraries in a digital age. Naturally, we were delighted that a PLoS board member was selected to give the first Arcadia lecture.

Starting work in open-access publishing at PLoS Medicine seemed a sensible step for me, having focused my Masters research on an evaluation of the quality and research dividends of an online archaeological database – a unique resource which holds records of more than 300,000 artefacts from England and Wales and renders information about these finds accessible to any interested party, whilst also facilitating research into previously neglected topics and questions. Yet, many of my colleagues in archaeology insisted that open access had no place in our discipline, arguing that authors would be unable to fund publication fees and traditional subscription-based journals were too central to assessment of academic merit. A quick search of PLoS journal archives reveals, however, that some archaeological scientists have already embraced the open-access model for dissemination of their research.

A study by John McGrath and colleagues, published by PLoS Medicine earlier this week, showed that the offspring of older fathers exhibit subtle impairments on tests of neurocognitive ability during infancy and childhood.

Last week, in celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, a number of UK-based PLoSsers made the trek to London’s Natural History Museum to attend the annual celebration of Darwin’s Birthday Party, held annually by the Centre for Ecology and Evolution (CEE) since 1994. The CEE is an organisation set up to foster communication between ecologists and evolutionary biologists working at various institutions across London.