The open access movement is an attempt to free scholarly communication from restrictions on access, control, and cost, and to enable benefits such as data mining and increased citations. While open access is approached here from the problem of subscription inflation, open access is not merely a library issue; it affects the availability of research to current and future students and scholars. This white paper offers an introduction to open access as well as a look at its current development.

Journal prices have long been a matter of controversy. Lacking has been any objective information on costs that could be used to judge whether price increases have been justified by rising costs. Using a rare, publicly available set of data for the American Economic Review, the premier journal in economics, this article normalizes costs for number of issues per annum, number of pages per issue, and print quantities per issue to construct an index for the costs of producing this journal. It shows that costs have in fact increased more slowly than the general rate of inflation and argues that the cost experience of this journal provides a reference point for academic journals generally.

Recession is currently causing a resurgence of the academic serials crisis. Profit-mongering by commercial publishers is once again denounced as the key driver of the crisis. However, a critical analysis of institutional and bibliometric data does not reveal excessive corporate greed in recent years; instead, it suggests that the present hurdles stem largely from years of inadequate budget allocations to academic libraries and from a publishing frenzy fuelled by simplistic methods of evaluating faculty productivity. To prevent what is likely to be the publishing equivalent of a tsunami in the next few years, universities and research institutions urgently need to re-emphasize quality over quantity in the publishing process, and they must find ways to include peer-reviewing efficiency among their criteria for productivity and impact.

As the Internet has enhanced the collection and provision of citation, usage and access metrics, the challenge lies neither in the technology nor the method, but in constructing databases that deliver services of value to the scholar. However, the development of metrics has hitherto been driven by the needs of external research assessment (governments and funders), while publishers and libraries have focused on their own needs (e.g. journal impact and usage factors). Scholars often criticize research assessment and the use of particular metrics as a zero-sum game whose undesirable consequences far outweigh the benefits. However, this is not to be confused with a general prejudice against metrics, which are principally compatible with the scholarly recognition and rewards system. But it does indicate that current metric information services often do not serve the needs of scholars. The question everybody should be asking is: What kind of metric information services would serve scholars? The argument proceeds in six steps. First, the problematic and controversial nature of assessment metrics is discussed. Second, the limited value of current metric information services is outlined. Third, the notion of metrics as research information services is clarified. Fourth, some examples of such services are offered. Fifth, the potential value is sketched from the perspective of a postdoc. Sixth, it is indicated that societies and publishers could begin building more metric information services since tried-and-tested technology and methods are available already.

Today’s publishing infrastructure is rapidly changing. As electronic journals, digital libraries, collaboratories, logic servers, and other knowledge infrastructures emerge on the internet, the key aspects of this transformation need to be identified. Here, the author details the implications that this transformation is having on the creation, dissemination and organization of academic knowledge. The author shows that many established publishing principles need to be given up in order to facilitate this transformation. The text provides valuable insights for knowledge managers, designers of internet-based knowledge infrastructures, and professionals in the publishing industry. Researchers will find the scenarios and implications for research processes stimulating and thought-provoking.

STM journals with Twitter accounts

Journals should use a generic submission format until papers are accepted.

"In the age of the Internet, the ways you share and use academic research results are changing — rapidly, fundamentally, irreversibly. There’s great potential in change. After all, faster and wider sharing of journal articles, research data, simulations, syntheses, analyses, and other findings fuels the advance of knowledge. It’s a two-way street — sharing research benefits you and others. But will the promise of digital scholarship be fully realized? How will yesterday’s norms adapt to tomorrow’s possibilities? This website will help you understand the changing landscape and how it affects you and your research. It also offers practical ways to look out for your own interests as a researcher. A scholarly revolution is underway. It enables you to get a greater return from your research. All you have to do is share it."

For decades, university presses and other scholarly and professional publishers in the United States played a pivotal role in the transmission of scholarly knowledge. Th eir books and journals became the “gold standard” in many academic fi elds for tenure, promotion, and merit pay. Th eir basic business model was successful, since this diverse collection of presses had a unique value proposition. Th ey dominated the scholarly publishing fi eld with preeminent sales in three major markets or channels of distribution: libraries and institutions; college and graduate school adoptions; and general readers (i.e., sales to general retailers). Yet this insulated world changed abruptly in the late 1990s. What happened? This book contains a superb series of articles originally published in The Journal of Scholarly Publishing, by some of the best experts on scholarly communication in the western hemisphere, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Th ese authors analyze in depth the diverse and exciting challenges and opportunities scholars, universities, and publishers face in what is a period of unusual turbulence in scholarly publishing. The topics given attention include: copyrights, the transformation of scholarly publishing from a print format to a digital one, open access, scholarly publishing in emerging nations, problems confronting journals, and information on how certain academic disciplines are coping with the transformation of scholarly publishing. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the scholarly publishing industry’s past, its current focus, or future plans and developments.

On the Journal's beta site, we pursue new ideas in publishing and showcase innovative ways to present information for use in medical education, research, and clinical practice. This beta site is part of our commitment to physicians who "Never Stop Learning". Please check back often.

The Symposium on Electronic Scientific, Technical, and Medical (STM) Journals and Its Implications addressed five key areas. The first two areas addressed--costs of publication and publication business models and revenue--focused on the STM publishing enterprise as it exists today and, in particular, how it has evolved since the advent of electronic publishing. The following section reviewed copyright and licensing issues of concern to the authors and to universities. The final two sessions looked toward the future, specifically, at what publishing may be in the future and what constitutes a publication in the digital environment.

members list

PET is a library of PHP classes for use with the Entrez API. They give easy access to the NCBI databases, including PubMed, PubMed Central, OMIM, and the various *omics databases. The library is currently primitive, but under active development. Because PHP is one of the easiest languages to learn and is in very widespread use, it is hoped that PET may give those without extensive programming skills the ability to quickly produce useful services.\nPET services\n\nFive publically available services currently run with PET:\n\nAssEd:\n The semi-automatic assistant editor: a device for comparing multiple pubmed search results in order to find authors in common between them. Use when you are searching for an author who has published on two or more subjects, but where it is not important whether the two subjects occur in the same paper.\nOAFF:\n The open-access friend finder: a device for searching PubMed Central and returning a list of the most-published authors on a particular topic (or location). Use when searching for those authors in a field who most friendly toward open-access publishing.\nTiPS:\n Trends in Publishing Science: a device for creating graphs to show monthly trends in PubMed depositions for a particular topic, journal, location, etc.\nPubMed Cloud:\n A toy which runs a PubMed search and then generates the HTML for a word cloud from all of the abstracts in that search.\nAuthor Profile:\n Displays somebody's PubMed record, but with useful statistics and trends. You can use it from the search box on the left, or from the links in AssEd and OAFF results.

Topics covered include: * What is Web 2.0? * Web 1.0 and scholarly communication * Web 2.0 and Open Access * Blogs * Social bookmarking * Social networking * Podcasts * Wikis * Data * Peer review * Reasons for lack of uptake to date

Research Councils UK (RCUK) have published an independent study commissioned by the Research Councils into open access to research outputs. The purpose of the study was to identify the effects and impacts of open access on publishing models and institutional repositories in light of national and international trends. This included the impact of open access on the quality and efficiency of scholarly outputs, specifically journal articles. The report presents options for the Research Councils to consider, such as maintaining the current variation in Research Councils’ mandates, or moving towards increased open access, eventually leading to Gold Standard.

The current issue of European Review has a section on OA. (Thanks to Russ Swan.) * Gerard Van Trier, Focus: Scholarly Publishing and Open Access * Michael A. Mabe, Scholarly Publishing * Dieter M. Imboden, Scientific Publishing: the Dilemma of Research Funding Organisations * Robert Aymar, Scholarly Communication in High-Energy Physics: Past, Present and Future Innovations * Paul Ayris, New Wine in Old Bottles: Current Developments in Digital Delivery and Dissemination

Although many new forms of scholarly exchange have reached an advanced state of adoption, scholars and researchers generally remain remarkably naïve and uninformed about many issues involved with change in scholarly publishing and scholarly communication broadly. It is increasingly important that dialogue at research institutions involve a much wider group of researchers and scholars. Only active engagement by those undertaking research and scholarship can ensure that the advancement of research and scholarship takes priority in the development and adoption of new models. Research libraries have led in educating stakeholders about new models and are expanding their outreach to campus communities. In considering the effects of recent change, and looking to emerging trends and concerns, six dangers of the current moment are considered along with six topics ripe for campus dialogue.

First Monday Volume 14, Number 4 - 6 April 2009

Lemon8-XML is a web-based application designed to make it easier for non-technical editors and authors to convert scholarly papers from typical word-processor editing formats such as MS-Word .DOC and OpenOffice .ODT, into XML-based publishing layout formats. It provides the ability to edit document metadata such as the list of authors, as well as robust citation editing, checking and correction. Lemon8-XML is being developed as part of PKP's efforts to ensure that the latest web-based technologies are directed toward simultaneously decreasing the cost and effort of electronic publishing, as well as improving the quality and reach of scholarly communication. Lemon8-XML is a stand-alone system that will serve publishing processes more generally, as well as complement the workflow of Open Journal Systems.

Big chart of publishing companies Rank Publishing Company (Group or Division) Parent Company Parent Country 2006 $ Revenues 2005 $ Revenues 1 Reed Elsevier Reed Elsevier UK/NL 7,606.30 7,217.60 2 Pearson Pearson plc UK 7,301.00 6,807.00 3 Thomson Thomson Corp. Canada 6,641.00 6,173.00 4 Bertelsmann Bertelsmann AG Germany 5,995.60 5,475.60 5 Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer NL 4,800.90 4,386.20 6 Hachette Livre Lagardère France 2,567.50 2,137.20 7 McGraw-Hill Education The McGraw-Hill Cos. US 2,524.00 2,672.00 8 Reader's Digest Reader's Digest US 2,386.00 2,390.00 9 Scholastic Corp. Scholastic US 2,283.80 2,079.90 10 De Agostini Editore Gruppo De Agostini Italy N/A 2,089.10 11 Holtzbrinck Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck Germany N/A 1,594.84 12 Grupo Planeta Grupo Planeta Spain 1,319.50 N/A 13 HarperCollins News Corporation US 1,312.00 1,327.00 14 Houghton Mifflin Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Ireland 1,054.73¹ 1,282.10 15 Informa Informa plc UK 1,271.14 N/A 16 Springer Science and Business Media Cinven and Candover UK/Germany/Italy/France 1,201.20 1,088.10 17 Kodansha Kodansha Japan 1,180.92 1,253.85 18 Shogakukan Shogakukan Japan N/A 1,176.63 19 Shueisha Shueisha Japan N/A 1,093.95 20 John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons US 1,044.19 974.00 21 Editis Wendel Investissement France 981.50 1,008.96 22 RCS Libri RCS Media Group Italy 937.82 921.18 23 Oxford Univ. Press Oxford University UK 786.11 858.65 24 Kadokawa Publishing Kadokawa Holdings Inc. Japan 808.60 809.90 25 Simon & Schuster CBS US 807.00 763.00 26 Bonnier The Bonnier Group Sweden 769.56 N/A 27 Gakken Gakken Co. Ltd. Japan 682.89 756.99 28 Grupo Santillana PRISA Spain 635.44 545.22 29 Messagerie Italiane Messagerie Italiane Italy 629.20 N/A 30 Mondadori (book division) The Mondadori Group Italy 571.35 552.50 31 Klett Klett Gruppe Germany 520.00 458.12 32 Cornelsen Cornelsen Germany 451.10 450.97 33 Harlequin Torstar Corp. Canada 407.03 449.54 34 WSOY Publishing and Educational Publishing Sanoma WSOY Finland 401.70 N/A 35 Médias Participations Media Participations Belgium 381.16 391.56 36 Les Editions Lefebvre-Sarrut Frojal France 342.29 293.80 37 Langenscheidt Langenscheidt Germany 338.00 N/A 38 Weka Weka Firmengruppe Germany 327.47 333.84 39 Groupe Gallimard Madrigall France 309.40 330.14 40 Westermann Verlagsgruppe Medien Union (Rheinland-Pflaz Gruppe) Germany 303.94 294.84 41 Kyowon Kyowon Korea N/A 303.68 42 Weltbild Verlagsgruppe Weltbild GmbH Germany 299.78 291.46 43 La Martinière Groupe La Martinière Groupe France 296.40 334.10 44 Higher Education Press Higher Education Press China (PR) N/A 266.50 45 Egmont (book division) Egmont International Holding A/S Denmark 260.00 232.70