Publishing
Vol 33(1), February 2007
By
Apr 20, 2008 - 11:20 AM

Fyfe A. 2006. Information revolution: William Chambers, the publishing pioneer. Endeavour 30(4):120–125. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science)
This general-interest article reviews the contribution of William Chambers (1800–1883); he was one of the first science publishers to take advantage of steam power and new machinery in the 19th century to reach a national market, reaching a broad readership from all parts of society. The article is part of the Science in the Industrial Revolution series.

Ritter SK. 2006. Making the cover. Chemical and Engineering News 84(45):24–27. (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/84/8445sci1.html)
This piece describes how eye-catching journal covers are surviving in the age of the Internet, at least in chemistry, and briefly discusses the surrounding ethical issues and how they are used to promote articles.

Seringhaus M, Gerstein M. 2006. The death of the scientific paper. The Scientist 20(9):25. (http://www.the-scientist.com/article/daily/24465/)
The basic currency of science is still the research article, but modern laboratory research results yield enormous data sets, straining the established article framework. Isolated findings or negative results are seldom published, so it is useful to preserve data in its native digital format (this could avoid purposeless repetition of costly experiments). Scientific information is exchanged in a multi-tiered manner, rendering the scientific manuscript optional. The future of scientific data lies in digital storage and access, contributing also to the reduction of the “publish or perish” syndrome. Academic publishing must diversify or die.

Swan A. 2006. Open access. What has been going on? High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine (http://library.cern.ch/HEPLW/13/papers/1/)
Overview of what happened on the Open Access (OA) scene in the last two years. Facts and figures concerning publishers, funding organizations, charities, academic and research institutions, as well as the authors’ attitudes regarding citation patterns and self archiving practices in this ever-changing publication arena. The paper contains a list of useful links to updated documents and declarations on Open Access.

PLoS Medicine Editors. 2006. Are we publishing “the right stuff”? PLoS Medicine 3 (11):e512. (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0030512)
The editors of PLOS Medicine wonder whether they, as editors, are publishing the right stuff in their journal on the basis of the findings of a major study estimating the likely trends in global morbidity and mortality. This editorial critically considers what editors should be publishing and the proportion of research on different diseases appearing in a general medical journal.

Wager E. 2006. Publishing clinical trial results: the future beckons. PLoS Clinical Trials 1(6):e31. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pctr.0010031)
Why do we publish clinical trials results? Is the present format for reporting results from randomized clinical trials in peer-reviewed journals still efficient and effective? The advantages offered by alternative models of publication are presented and the implications for trial sponsors and medical journals are discussed in detail. Problems, opportunities, and possible solutions on reporting results are clearly pointed out in the ever-changing scenario of online publications.


© Copyright 2008 by European Association of Science Editors