Category: Scholarly Journals

ICOLC “Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses” Reissued

The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has updated and reissued its "Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses."

Here's an excerpt:

The ICOLC is reissuing its Statement on the Global Economic Crisis to update information providers on the state of library and library consortia budgets in 2010. The updates below reinforce the ICOLC Statement in three substantial ways.

  1. ICOLC did not overestimate the severity of cuts to library and library consortia funding levels in its original Statement. Furthermore, we believe the worst may still be before us, as US state governments suffer the loss of stimulus funds and continued weak regional economies. All parts of the world are facing negative economic repercussions from the European debt crisis. The need for pricing restraint and options remains paramount.
  2. Fifty ICOLC member groups from around the world have participated in an anonymous survey to measure 2009 to 2010 price changes from over 30 major vendors and publishers of electronic databases and journals. This survey reveals that 38% of the price changes provided price control in the form of 1% increases or less. Seven percent (7%) of the price changes provided price reductions. We wish to commend those suppliers who have worked with libraries and consortia to contain prices. However, significant room for improvement remains. Some suppliers have done a much better job of containing prices than others. We call upon the full range of suppliers to show price restraint in 2010-2011 to enable customers to sustain as many information resource licenses as possible.
  3. We take this opportunity to highlight the added potential negative impact of exclusivity on prices, as well as access. A new Principle 3 on page 3 of this document expresses the strongly held belief of ICOLC members that, over the long-term, multiple distribution channels for licensed content provide the most affordable and suitable options for access across diverse library communities.

Nature Publishing Group Adds Open Access Options for 7 Journals

The Nature Publishing Group has added open access options for 7 more journals.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is pleased to announce open access options for seven further journals. Twenty-five journals published by NPG now offer authors an open access option, including all 15 academic journals owned by NPG.

American Journal of Gastroenterology, Bone Marrow Transplantation, Gene Therapy, International Journal of Obesity, Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, Oncogene, and Leukemia have all recently introduced open access options. Authors publishing in these journals can now choose to make their article open access on payment of an article processing charge (APC). . . .

Including the American Journal of Gastroenterology and Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, seven journals published by NPG on behalf of societies offer open access options. Other journals in this portfolio with an open access are: British Journal of Cancer, The EMBO Journal, EMBO reports, European Journal of Human Genetics and Molecular Therapy. . . .

Launched in April 2010, Nature Communications is the first Nature-branded online-only journal with an open access option. In 2009, NPG introduced open access options on twelve of its academic journals.

NPG also publishes two fully open access journals: Cell Death and Disease and Molecular Systems Biology. Cell Death & Disease, launched in January 2010, is the open access sister title to Cell Death & Differentiation. Launched in 2005, Molecular Systems Biology is published in association with the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and has a 2008 Impact Factor of 12.243.

NPG's self-archiving policy ensures that authors of original research papers can comply with funder mandates for public access, regardless of which NPG journal they publish in. In addition, NPG offers a free Manuscript Deposition Service into PubMed Central and UK PubMed Central on 43 of its titles.

Directory of Open Access Journals Tops 5,000 Journal Records

The Directory of Open Access Journals now contains records for more than 5,000 journals.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Directory of Open Access Journals reaches new milestones—now 7 years of operation, now more than 5,000 journals, now more than 2,000 journals searchable on article level, very soon more than 400,000 articles searchable! . . .

Ensuring That 'E' Doesn't Mean Ephemeral: A Practical Guide to E-Journal Archiving Solutions

JISC has released Ensuring That 'E' Doesn't Mean Ephemeral: A Practical Guide to E-Journal Archiving Solutions, which discusses CLOCKSS, Portico, and the UK LOCKSS Alliance.

Here's an excerpt:

This booklet provides a starting point for institutions interested in investigating e-archiving options. It gives a practical guide to the solutions offered by three of the main long-term preservation schemes and provides an overview of the distinguishing features of each solution.

"Seeking the New Normal: Periodicals Price Survey 2010"

Kittie S. Henderson & Stephen Bosch have published "Seeking the New Normal: Periodicals Price Survey 2010" in Library Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

A number of publishers upped prices for 2010. Springer announced a five percent increase. Elsevier price increases are also in the five percent range, with the notable exception of The Lancet. The 2010 price for The Lancet jumped nine percent over 2009 levels; that increase was still smaller than in previous years. In October, the library world reeled as Nature Publishing Group (NPG) announced a 640 percent price increase (from $39.95 in 2009 to $299 in 2010) for a print subscription to Scientific American. The cost for the digital site license also rose substantially, and a number of consortia, like the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and the Oberlin Group, refused to renew. The announcement came only weeks after NPG bought the magazine.

"Open Access Publishing: A Viable Solution for Society Publishers"

Sarah Cooney-Mcquat, Stefan Busch and Deborah Kahn have published "Open Access Publishing: A Viable Solution for Society Publishers" in the latest issue of Learned Publishing. The paper is open access.

Here's an excerpt:

The open access (OA) business model has established itself as a viable alternative to traditional subscription-based publishing and is an option that societies should now realistically consider for their journals. This paper outlines how the OA model can work for societies, and presents a number of case studies that demonstrate how it is already working in practice.

portal: Libraries and the Academy Makes Copy-Edited E-Prints Available

portal: Libraries and the Academy will make copy-edited e-prints of articles in forthcoming issues available.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Johns Hopkins University Press and portal: Libraries and the Academy have announced an agreement that will provide increased access to research about the role of academic libraries and librarianship.

Beginning with the April 2010 issue, copy-edited versions of all accepted articles will be available in an open-access web environment. Six articles for the upcoming issue have already been posted online. The final, published version of the journal will still appear in Project MUSE®, a subscription-based online database of scholarly journals based at the JHU Press.

"As we move into our next decade, we want to advance past the traditional ways of presenting information and take advantage of new forms of scholarly communication," says Sarah Pritchard, the Charles Deering McCormick University Librarian at Northwestern University and editor of portal, currently in its 10th year of publication. "We appreciate the support of the Johns Hopkins University Press, which has been a good partner and good publishing venue for the journal."

The agreement, which will be re-evaluated after 18 months, allows for manuscripts to appear online after the copy-editing process is complete, but prior to the publication of the print version of the journal. The files will have a watermark to identifying its status in the publishing process.

"Copyright Provisions in Law Journal Publication Agreements"

Benjamin J. Keele has self-archived "Copyright Provisions in Law Journal Publication Agreements" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This study examined copyright provisions of law journal publication agreements and found that a minority of journals ask authors to transfer copyright. Most journals also permit authors to self-archive articles. It recommends journals make their agreements publicly available and use licenses instead of copyright transfers.

Modelling Scholarly Communication Options: Costs and Benefits for Universities

JISC has released Modelling Scholarly Communication Options: Costs and Benefits for Universities.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement (announcement includes podcast):

The key findings from the report show

  • The annual savings in research and library costs of a university repository model combined with subscription publishing could range from £100,000 to £1,320,000
  • Moving from Open Access journals and subscription-funding to per-article Open Access journal funding has the potential to achieve savings for universities between £620,000 per year and £1,700,000 per year if the article-processing charge is set at £500 or less
  • Savings from a change away from subscription-funding to per-article Open Access journal funding were estimated to be between £170,000 and £1,365,000 per year for three out of the four universities studied when the article-processing charge is £1000 per article or less
  • For the remaining university in the study a move from subscription-funding to the per-article Open Access journal funding saw the university having to pay £1.86m more in this scenario

See also the related documents: How to Build a Case for University Policies and Practices in Support of Open Access and Publishing Research Papers Which Policy Will Deliver Best Value for Your University?.

"A Survey of the Scholarly Journals Using Open Journal Systems"

Brian D. Edgar and John Willinsky have self-archived "A Survey of the Scholarly Journals Using Open Journal Systems" on the Public Knowledge Project website.

Here's an excerpt:

A survey of 998 scholarly journals that use Open Journal Systems (OJS), an open source journal software platform, captures the characteristics of an emerging class of scholar-publisher open access journals (with some representation from more traditional scholarly society and print-based titles). The journals in the sample follow traditional norms for peer-reviewing, acceptance rates, and disciplinary focus, but are distinguished by the number that offer open access to their content, the growth rates in new titles, the participation rates from developing countries, and the extremely low operating budgets. The survey also documents the limited degree to which open source software can alter a field of communication, as OJS appears to have created a third path, dedicated to maximizing access to research and scholarship, as an alternative to traditional scholarly society and commercial publishing routes.

CMAJ to Cease Being an Open Access Journal in January 2010

CMAJ, which has been an open access journal since 1995, will cease being so in January 2010, when some content will be restricted to subscribers.

Here's an excerpt from the "No Longer Free for All":

The harsh economic reality is that CMAJ, like many others in the publishing industry, has experienced a considerable decline in advertising revenue over the past two years. This loss necessitated an extensive examination of other business models to adequately address today’s economic challenges.

"Examining Law Journal Publication Agreements for Copyright Transfers and Self-Archiving Rights"

Benjamin J. Keele has self-archived "Examining Law Journal Publication Agreements for Copyright Transfers and Self-Archiving Rights" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This study examines 78 law journal publication agreements and finds that a minority of journals ask authors to transfer copyright. Most journals also permit author to self-archive articles with some conditions. The study recommends journals make their agreements publicly available and use licenses instead of copyright transfers.

Academic Journal Publisher Brill Launches Brill Open

Brill, an international academic publisher located in Leiden and Boston, has launched Brill Open.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This new author service offers the option of making articles freely available upon publication. Brill Open enables authors to comply with research funding bodies and institutions which require open access.

The Brill Open option will be available for all 135 journals published under the imprints Brill, Martinus Nijhoff and VSP. Articles will be put in online open access in exchange for an article publishing fee to be arranged by the author.

Sam Bruinsma, Brill's Business Development Director, explains:"We are launching this new service in answer to a growing number of research funding bodies and universities announcing their compliance with the open access model. With Brill Open our journals are ready to meet the expected increase in contributions under this model."

In order to ensure that authors' funder requirements have no influence on the editorial peer review and decision-making, Brill Open will be made available to authors only upon acceptance of their paper for publication. Those authors who do not wish to use this service will be under no pressure to do so, and their accepted article will be published in the usual manner.

Brill's strategic intent is to adjust the future subscription price of a journal to reflect an increase in Brill Open fees. Sam Bruinsma comments: "Our view on open access developments is positive. We accept that over time an increasing part of our revenues will come through this new model. This will have an impact on the revenues from our library subscription service. The combination of these two business models will continue to support a healthy and sustainable journal program attractive to the best authors in the field."

DeepDyve Launches Rental Service for Scholarly Articles

DeepDyve has launched a rental service for scholarly articles.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

DeepDyve today unveiled the world 's largest online rental service for scientific, technical and medical research. From a growing database spanning thousands of journals, DeepDyve now gives consumers and professionals access to more than 30 million articles for as little as $0.99 per article.

"The web is transforming the publishing industry and creating opportunities for new users to access our content," said Martin Frank, Ph. D., executive director of the American Physiological Society. "The rental model that DeepDyve has pioneered enables us to serve these new users without compromising the products we offer to our traditional subscription customers." . . .

DeepDyve . . . offers an array of features and benefits to enrich the searching and reading experience, including:

  • Free search & preview: Researchers can be certain of an article's relevance before renting.
  • Personalized suggestions: DeepDyve will automatically display suggested articles based on a user 's profile.
  • Bookmarks: Favorite articles are saved and displayed on a user 's MyDeepDyve home page for easy access.
  • Email and RSS alerts: Users can receive regular updates of new articles and search results delivered directly to their email inbox or RSS reader.
  • More Like This: DeepDyve offers links to related content with every search result and article page. . . .

DeepDyve is currently offering a risk-free, 14-day trial that allows users unlimited access to thousands of authoritative journals at no cost. Users enjoy continuous access to any article until their Free Trial expires, after which they may join one of three plans:

  • Basic Rental Plan: For just $0.99 per article, users of this “pay-as-you-go” plan can rent and read a premium article from one of the many prestigious journals available through DeepDyve. Articles can be read multiple times for up to 24 hours.
  • Silver Monthly Plan: For $9.99 per month, users can rent and read up to 20 premium articles per month. Each article can be read multiple times for up to seven days.
  • Gold Monthly Plan: For $19.99 per month, users can rent and read an unlimited number of articles for an unlimited amount of time. There is no expiration date.

UK's National Institute for Health Research Funds 15% Discount in BioMed Central Publication Fees for Its Researchers

The UK's National Institute for Health Research has inked a Supporter Membership arrangement with BioMed Central that will allow researchers supported by the NIHR and its partners to get a 15% discount on BioMed Central publication fees.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Under the terms of the NIHR's Supporter Membership arrangement, all NHS researchers supported by the NIHR and its partners will benefit from a 15% discount on publication fees when publishing in any of BioMed Central's 200 peer-reviewed open access journals. Researchers are expected to acknowledge NIHR support.

The NIHR is part of the Department of Health, which is a strong advocate of access to the results of research and a partner in the UK PubMed Central open access digital archive project. In 2007 it made a statement confirming official policy in support of open access. http://www.nihr.ac.uk/files/pdfs/OpenAccessPolicyStatement.pdf

With support through the NIHR, researchers already publish hundreds of open access articles each year in BioMed Central’s journals, and Supporter Membership will further encourage open access publication, increasing public access to the results of taxpayer funded research whilst saving money.

The STM Report: An Overview of Scientific and Scholarly Journal Publishing

The International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers has released The STM Report: An Overview of Scientific and Scholarly Journal Publishing.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Annual revenues generated from English-language STM journal publishing are estimated at $8 billion in 2008, up by 6-7% compared to 2007, within a broader STM publishing market worth some $16 billion. About 55% of global STM revenues (including non-journal STM products) come from the USA, 30% from Europe, 10% from Asia/Pacific and 5% from the rest of the world.

Continued growth in output, particularly from China and East Asia, will put further pressure on the system, especially when combined with funders’ desire for greater return on research investments and the pressures on researchers to accelerate the research cycle.

There are approximately 2000 journal publishers globally, and the main English-language trade and professional associations for journal publishers include 657 publishers producing around 11,550 journals—about 50% of the total journal output by title. Of these, 477 publishers (73%) and 2334 journals (20%) are not-for-profit.

There were about 25,400 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals in early 2009, collectively publishing about 1.5 million articles a year. The number of articles published each year and the number of journals have both grown steadily for over two centuries, by about 3% and 3.5% per year respectively. The reason is the equally persistent growth in the number of researchers, which has also grown at about 3% per year and now stands at between 5.5 and 10 million, depending on definition, although only about 20% of these are repeat authors.

Income Models for Open Access: An Overview of Current Practice

SPARC has released Income Models for Open Access: An Overview of Current Practice.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"Who pays for Open Access?" is a key question faced by publishers, authors, and libraries as awareness and interest in free, immediate, online access to scholarly research increases. SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) examines the issue of sustainability for current and prospective open-access publishers in a timely new guide, "Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice," by Raym Crow.

"Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice" examines the use of supply-side revenue streams (such as article processing fees, advertising) and demand-side models (including versioning, use-triggered fees). The guide provides an overview of income models currently in use to support open-access journals, including a description of each model along with examples of journals currently employing it. . . .

Developing a sound business model is a critical concern for all publishers and the process can be especially challenging for those considering open-access distribution. The guide recognizes that the needs of individual journals differ, and that publishers will apply a variety of income models to support open-access distribution. The right model must take into account not only the publisher's need to cover expenses, but also the organization's mission objectives, size, business management resources, and other factors. . . .

"Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice" is available for free to read or download online. The guide is supplemented by an extensive Web resource, which invites community discussion on models described as well as contributions related to new and other models. The resource is online at http://www.arl.org/sparc/publisher/incomemodels/.

Open Journal Systems 2.3 Released

The Public Knowledge Project has released Open Journal Systems 2.3.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

OJS 2.3.0 introduces a major rewrite of core aspects of PKP applications that reconciles common code (e.g. shared between OJS, OCS, and the Harvester) into a separate library called the PKP Web Application Library (WAL). Many parts of the system have been changed in a way that is transparent to users but that will vastly improve maintainability and the ease with which PKP can deploy fixes and new features across multiple applications. Wherever possible, this has been done in a way that minimizes code breakage e.g. for modified installs of OJS and custom plugins.

Read more about it at "OJS 2.3: What's New."

Peter Suber on "Ten Challenges for Open-Access Journals"

Peter Suber has published "Ten Challenges for Open-Access Journals" in the latest issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

Here's an excerpt:

I start with three disparities:  the gap between journal performance and what prevailing metrics say about journal performance (#1); the gap between the vision of OA embodied in the Budapest, Bethesda, and Berlin statements and the access policies at 85% of OA journals (#2); and the gap between a journal's quality and its prestige, even when the quality is high (#3).  Then I move on to seven kinds of doubt:  doubts about quality (#4), preservation (#5), honesty (#6), publication fees (#7), sustainability (#8), redirection (#9), and strategy (#10).

BioMed Central Launches Its 200th Open Access Journal

BioMed Central has launches its 200th open access journal, the Journal of Angiogenesis Research.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This major milestone reflects a growing trend as senior academics and learned societies turn to open access to publish their new journals or to improve the reach and visibility of their existing journals.

The success of any scientific journal, open access or subscription based, depends on it receiving a good number of high-quality papers in its area of interest. But for a subscription-based journal to succeed, it faces the additional hurdle of selling enough subscriptions to pay for its costs. In the current financial environment, libraries are increasingly having to trim their collections and are finding it virtually impossible to purchase new titles. This makes launching new subscription-based journals extremely challenging. Also, learned societies or scientific institutions who publish only a small number of titles are struggling to maintain their subscription numbers in competition with the larger publishers who sell collections of titles under the "big deal." In contrast, more and more institutions and funding bodies are making funds available for scientists to publish their papers in open access journals (see our recent blog posting on the Open Access Compact).

As a result of this situation, BioMed Central has recently seen an increasing number of institutions and societies choosing to take the open access route, either to launch new journals or increasingly to convert their existing journals to open access. Just this year, additions to our portfolio include Genetics, Selection and Evolution, owned and supported by INRA (the French National Institute for Agricultural Research), and Journal of Biomedical Science, which is supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan. These are established journals with impact factors and good rankings in their subject categories in the Journal Citation Report.  Also moving towards a re-launch with BioMed Central is Allergy, Asthma and Clinical Immunology, the official journal of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. In addition, several societies have launched new journals with us this year, including Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy & Technology and Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome.

Our experience with journals which have transferred to open access shows that they increase their submission levels and impact factors. For instance, the 50 year old Acta Veterinaria Scandanavica has doubled its submissions and nearly trebled its impact factor within three years of moving to BioMed Central. The journal has already risen to an upper mid-table position in the "Veterinary Sciences" category of the Journal Citation Report (57/134 in 2008), from its previous position in the lower reaches of the category.

"Empirical Study of Data Sharing by Authors Publishing in PLoS Journals"

Caroline J. Savage and Andrew J. Vickershave have published "Empirical Study of Data Sharing by Authors Publishing in PLoS Journals" in PLoS One.

Here's an excerpt:

We requested data from ten investigators who had published in either PLoS Medicine or PLoS Clinical Trials. All responses were carefully documented. In the event that we were refused data, we reminded authors of the journal's data sharing guidelines. If we did not receive a response to our initial request, a second request was made. Following the ten requests for raw data, three investigators did not respond, four authors responded and refused to share their data, two email addresses were no longer valid, and one author requested further details. A reminder of PLoS's explicit requirement that authors share data did not change the reply from the four authors who initially refused. Only one author sent an original data set. . . .

We received only one of ten raw data sets requested. This suggests that journal policies requiring data sharing do not lead to authors making their data sets available to independent investigators.

Nature Publishing Group Will Publish New Open Access Journal, Nature Communications

The Nature Publishing Group has announced that it will publish a new open access journal, Nature Communications, starting in April 2010.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Nature Communications will publish high-quality peer-reviewed research across the biological, chemical and physical sciences, and will be the first online-only Nature-branded journal.

"As a born-digital publication, Nature Communications will provide readers and authors with the benefits of enhanced web technologies alongside a rapid, yet rigorous, peer-review process." says Sarah Greaves, Publisher of Nature Communications. "Nature Communications will offer authors high visibility for their papers on the nature.com platform, access to a broad readership and efficient peer review with fast publication. For readers, the journal will offer functionality including interactive browsing and enhanced metadata to enable sorting by keywords."

Nature Communications will publish research papers in all areas of the biological, chemical and physical sciences, encouraging papers that provide a multidisciplinary approach. The research will be of the highest quality, without necessarily having the scientific reach of papers published in Nature and the Nature research journals, and as such will represent advances of significant interest to specialists within each field. A team of independent editors, supported by an external editorial advisory panel, will make rapid and fair publication decisions based on peer review, with all the rigour expected of a Nature-branded journal.

To ensure Nature Communications responds to changes in journal publishing, authors will be able to publish their work either via the traditional subscription route, or as open access through payment of an article processing charge (APC).

Authors who choose the open-access option will be able to license their work under a Creative Commons license, including the option to allow derivative works. Authors who do not choose the open-access option will still enjoy all of the benefits of NPG's self-archiving policy and manuscript deposition service.

"Developments in publishing and web technologies, coupled with increasing commitment by research funders to cover the costs of open access, mean the time is right for a journal that offers editorial excellence and real choice for authors." said David Hoole, Head of Content Licensing at NPG.

University of Western Ontario Launches Scholarship@Western

The Western Libraries at the University of Western Ontario have launched Scholarship@Western.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement by Adrian K. Ho, Scholarly Communications Librarian:

Scholarship@Western showcases publications and presentations from the university community by department. As this is a new initiative, not all academic departments are listed at present. A segment of Scholarship@Western, named Researcher Gallery, offers virtual space for Western's faculty, graduate students, librarians, and archivists to create their homepages and provide access to their publications, presentations, and other academic materials. In addition, Scholarship@Western can function as an online publishing platform for journals, conference proceedings, research reports, and working papers. An online journal, the Western Undergraduate Research Journal: Health and Natural Sciences, will be published to celebrate Western's academic excellence.

Scholarship@Western will feature a niche for the University's master's theses and PhD dissertations. Western Libraries already has some of the past theses and dissertations digitized and will upload them to Scholarship@Western for free public access. Meanwhile, we have been working with the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies to develop a university-wide program that will publish, archive, and preserve future theses and dissertations on Scholarship@Western for widest possible access.

Read more about it at "Online Archive Opens Access to Research."

Related post: "Adrian K. Ho Named Scholarly Communication Librarian at Western Libraries of the University of Western Ontario."

"The York Digital Journals Project: Strategies for Institutional Open Journal Systems Implementations"

College & Research Libraries has released a preprint of "The York Digital Journals Project: Strategies for Institutional Open Journal Systems Implementations" by Andrea Kosavic.

Here's an excerpt:

Embarking on a university-wide journal hosting initiative can be a resource-intensive undertaking. Providing such a service, however, can be equally rewarding as it positions the library as both partner and colleague in the publishing process. This paper discusses ideas and strategies for institutional journal hosting gleaned over two years by the York Digital Journals Project. Suggestions for startup including policy considerations and service models are discussed. Ideas for advertising and networking are explored as well as the question of project sustainability.

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