BMJ  2005;331:650 (24 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7518.650

Editorial

Series, PowerPoint slides, and folders now available on bmj.com

Helping readers to file and reuse BMJ articles and illustrations

Three new services have been added recently to the BMJ's website, bmj.com. The first gives users what they've been asking for: links to all the series that have appeared in the BMJ. A button on bmj.com's home page, labelled "Series," takes users to a page with links to the 35 ABC series we've published since 1998 as well as other old favourites such as Statistics notes. This page also lists links to newer series such as 10 minute consultations, ethical debates, and interactive case reports (http//:bmj.com/series).

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The second new feature allows readers to turn illustrations from BMJ articles into PowerPoint slides with just two clicks of the mouse. All the user needs to do is to find the desired illustration, select the option labelled "View larger version [in this window]" and then click on the link marked "PowerPoint Slide for Teaching." Depending on the speed of connection, a PowerPoint slide can be ready in less than a minute. Teaching is the obvious use for these slides, but many users will find them valuable for other presentations. We can't provide this service for illustrations for which others hold the copyright (such as the photographs in the BMJ's news pages). Nevertheless, without any promotion of this service, up to 10 000 illustrations are already being rendered into PowerPoint slides on bmj.com each month.

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The newest of our services, and the one that may prove most useful, is folders. To save the link to any BMJ article click on the link marked "Add article to my folders" in the contents box adjacent to that article. Users can file their saved articles as they wish; can add, delete, or rename folders; can move articles around between folders and copy them into more than one; and can save searches in folders to use later when further studies have been published (the relevant link, "Save this search to my folders," appears at the top of the search results page).

Each user has to register for a username and password before setting up folders because each person's selection of articles and searches will be unique. This single username and password will allow users to store and manage in one place articles published not only by the BMJ but by the BMJ Publishing Group's two dozen specialist journals.¹

These three services are free, although access to the full text of articles and to the illustrations that appear within them depend on the user's access rights. Next year we will continue our policy of providing immediate free access to the full text of original research papers. The full text of all other articles, including editorials, news, and educational articles, will be behind access controls for a year after publication. These articles will be available only to BMA members, BMJ subscribers, and users from the world's poorest countries during the first year of publication.²

BMJ (tdelamothe{at}bmj.com)

References

1. BMJ Journals Online. www.bmjjournals.com/
2. BMJ and bmj.com pricing 2006. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/aboutsite/subscriptions2006.shtml

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