Now in your DeepDyve store: Nature papers to rent

Articles published in Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Medicine or Nature Chemical Biology are now available for renting from DeepDyve. Downloading or printing is not possible, and the $3.99 rental is for 24 hours.

Later this month, Nature plans to release the nature.com reader for the iPad. Monthy access to Nature (again read-only) will cost $9.99. For more information see yesterday’s press release.

In the discussion of subscriptions vs. author-pays for scholarly papers we sometimes forget that it’s really a question of how much we are willing to pay. I’m looking forward to the nature.com app for the iPad, and $9.99 per month seems reasonable. I would not rent a single article for $3.99 – this should either be $0.99 or give me the PDF that I can download and print, something that subscription journals typically charge $10-$30.