Publishing
Vol 33(4), November 2007
By
Jul 11, 2008 - 7:17 PM

Scientists are wary of open-access journals. Research Information 2007 March 22.
Researchers at University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Munich showed that researchers are reluctant to publish their research within open-access outlets, even if open-access publications have a higher speed of publication and citation rates. According to this study, academics are positive about the speed at which online journals spread new findings to academic world, but more than 50% of them said that open-access is not well-known enough to use it as a medium for publishing works, and that open-access publications lack a guarantee of long term availability of research. There seems to be a gap between positive attitudes toward open-access publication and a its use.

Latin America provides new publishing opportunities. Research Information 2007 May 14.
In Latin America online resources are becoming a significant part of libraries' collections and librarians plan to invest in a wide range of resources like e-books, online databases, and journals. But they are restricted in what they can afford to purchase, so they appreciate models offering flexibility to purchase the content they need, in the format they need, for a fair price not subject to rises. Online and print bundles remain the most popular subscription option.

Chen F. Open access unnecessary for physicists. APS News 2007;16(4):12.
Physicists prefer to attack problems without comprehensively reading the literature; the author says, "The only time I access previous articles is when the referee forces me to"!

Galyani Moghaddam G. Archiving challenges of scholarly electronic journals: how do publishers manage them? Serials Review 2007;33(2):81–90.
Electronic archiving of scholarly journals is an important issue for libraries as the usage of electronic journals has increased significantly in recent years. Two of the most important issues in digital libraries are long-term preservation of electronic journals and their accessibility; along with electronic publishing in general, these are causing a shift in responsibility for archiving journals from library to agreements between libraries and publishers.

Kljaković-Gaspić M,  Petrak J,  Rudan I, Biloglav Z. For free or for fee? Dilemma of small scientific journals. Croatian Medical Journal 2007;48(3):292–299.
The Croatian Medical Journal  was recently approached by two major publishing companies. The journal decided it wouldn’t benefit from joining commercial publishers because its interests are beyond making a profit, and setting the standards and education are its fundamental aims.

Kurata K,  Matsubayashi M,  Mine S,  Muranushi T, Ueda S. Electronic journals and their unbundled functions in scholarly communication: views and utilization by scientific, technological and medical researchers in Japan. Information Processing & Management 2007;43(5):1402–1415.
Assesses the position of electronic journals in scholarly communication, based on Japanese researchers’ information, behavior, and estimation. Even if they are shifting to electronic resources, researchers still rely on traditional scholarly journals for accessing information and publication.


© Copyright 2008 by European Association of Science Editors