From a user's perspective, it's difficult to focus on the difference between open access and free access to a journal article -- especially if all one intends to do is read the paper for an assignment in an undergraduate course. The distinction is important. PubMed Central is primarily an archive providing free access to traditionally copyrighted works, with the accompanying restrictions on reuse. It is a fantastic resource, providing access to the complete digital archive for nearly 800 journals, excluding some portion of the current issues for many titles. In addition, PMC has the author manuscripts of articles published by NIH-funded researchers in various non-PMC journals.A smaller number of journals are part of the Open Access subset, and are protected under Creative Commons license. The open access journals are easy to spot in the PMC list of titles, just look for the OA icon.
A relatively new OA journal in the PMC list is Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, indicative of the broader range of subjects in the PMC archive than might be expected. The Beilstein Journal publishes reviews, preliminary communications and full research articles in all areas of organic chemistry.
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