Fortunately, no! The Directory of Open Access Journals makes its data accessible to the public, including information on the open journals that do not charge a processing fee. We cross-referenced this data with the list of journals discoverable in PubMed and found that 330 journals indexed in PubMed may be open access, with no author processing charge required. Check out our list here.
Additionally, many of the papers discoverable in PubMed that are publicly accessible (via PubMed Central, PubMed’s public access repository) are not the result of a paid fee to make the work available there. These are not “open access” in the strictest sense, but even if your work is published in a subscription journal, here are some routes to making your paper accessible via PubMed Central:
| Route to PubMed Central | Caveat |
| Funder Mandate:
Papers funded by the NIH must be deposited into Pubmed Central. This means that even if you publish with a subscription journal, a version of your paper may be discoverable and free to read in Pubmed. (Make sure you select a journal that allows PMC deposit.) Numerous other private and national organizations that fund research also require a version of the paper be made publicly available. |
•The work must be peer reviewed and accepted for publication in a journal.
•May not be the published version but an author accepted manuscript. •It’s up to the author (librarians can help) to verify the journal’s licensing policy allows for deposit in PMC. Many subscription publications allow this. •May be subject to an embargo of up to 1 year. |
| More than 50 journals participate in PMC’s Public Health Emergency Collection, including for papers related COVID-19 or Monkeypox. |
See above. |
| Publish in a PMC-indexed journal. These are open access journals that have been vetted by the National Library of Medicine for inclusion in PubMed and are automatically included in Pubmed Central. | Many of these journals require the author pay an author processing charge (APC), but not all. See our list of no-fee PMC journals. Deposit in PMC is automatic upon publication for these journals. |
Finally, NYMC affiliates can take advantage of their institutional repository to increase the accessibility and readership of their work. Contact Capozzi Library to find out if your peer-reviewed, published paper allows an open version of the work to be deposited in your institutional repository, Touro Scholar. Full-text in Touro Scholar is discoverable via Google Scholar and Digital Commons.