Scholarly Journal Publishing
• Competing Information Realities: Digital
Libraries, Repositories, and the Commons
• ASIST Annual Meeting
November 2006
Donald H. Kraft[1]
Distinguished Visiting Professor
Department of Computer Science
U.S. Air Force Academy
USAFA, CO 80840
[email protected]
Department of Computer Science
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-4020
http://www.csc.lsu.edu/~kraft
Major Changes
• Information Technology
– Computers
– Internet/Web
• Improvements
– Creation, Handling, Storing, Retrieving
– Communications
• Economics
– High journal prices
– New services (e.g., CrossRef)
– Pay-per-view
– Intellectual property rights (copyright)
– Need to retrieve only parts of articles
Scholarly (scientific) Journals
– Peer-reviewed journals
– Editors
• Editorial policy
• Editorial board
• Selecting associate editors and/or referees
(gatekeepers) to certify content quality and
relevance
• Final decisions
Access Issues
• Electronic Submission
• Electronic Review
• Electronic Manuscript Management
– Tracking submissions
• Posting of Preprints
• Posting after acceptance
– Early View
– Archives
• Supplemental Materials
– E.G., Data, Proofs, Algorithms, Colored Figures
Benefits of Journals
Acceptance of Print Journals
History (Inertia)
Ease of Use
Tenure/Promotion acceptance
Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts
Aggregation
Open Access (Freebies)
Professional Societies – Need for Financial Support
Journals are a key part of their offerings
Access to scientific results
Research paid for by citizens
Commercial publishers (for profit)
Services – management, marketing, business
planning, product development, economies of
scale
Information, like water, perhaps should be free – but,
like water, someone must pay for the piping
Publish-or-Perish Syndrome
• Promotion/Tenure in Academia
• Increase in size and/or frequency of journals
– Cost to produce
• New journals
• Cost for libraries and/or subscribers
• Interdisciplinary journals
• Increased focus
– E.G., applications versus theory
Changes
• Incorporation of Technology
• Economics
Open Access Revisited (More Freebies)
• Journal subscription cancellations
• Self-archiving
• Educational uses