Published research articles are now available to rent, writes Frank Norman on his Nature Network blog, Trading Knowledge (http://go.nature.com/GKNUa8). Norman, head of library services at the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research in London, reviews a new business model for publishing.

When I buy a pair of shoes, I try them on first to see if they fit and look OK. Similarly when buying some items of clothing,” writes Norman. “Information is not like other goods though. If you open the box to read the information, then you have consumed the information already. This ... makes buying and selling information resources a tricky business.”

When online journals first arrived, Norman thought that publishers would sell sections of articles at a fraction of the full price. Instead, most journals chose to sell full articles at substantial prices and with only the abstract as a preview. But, Norman notes, a California company called DeepDyve (http://www.deepdyve.com) now offers article 'rentals'. For 99 cents, researchers can preview, but not save, a full article for 24 hours using DeepDyve's reading software.