[The PubMed Central International (PMCI) network is a collaborative effort between the PMCI repositories, publishers, and funding organisations that wish to preserve and provide free access to journal articles authored by the researchers they support. For many years, the PMCI network has consisted of three nodes, PMC USA, Europe PMC and PMC Canada.

At a recent PubMed Central National Advisory Committe meeting, David Lipman (Director of NCBI) gave a presentation on the current status of PubMed Central which included the following data: Over 1.9 million articles are available in PMC. (Expected to hit 2 million by end of June ’10); Participating journals: 640 full participants; 220 that participate through the NIH Portfolio;

PubMed Central Canada is now live. PMC Canada is a partnership between the National Research Council’s Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) PMC Canada is the second PMC International site to be established.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Research Council’s Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI), and the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) have announced a three-way partnership to establish PubMed Central Canada (PMC Canada). “PMC Canada is a powerful tool that will help researchers build upon one another’s work and speed up the discovery and innovation process to address important

As reported by Jennifer McLennan (Association of Research Libraries) on the SPARC-OpenData mailing list: 2009 Consolidated Appropriations Act ensures NIH public access policy will persist Washington, D.C. – March 12, 2009 – President Obama yesterday signed into law the 2009 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes a provision making the National Institutes’ of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy permanent.