Category: Scholarly Journals

Presentations from the SCOAP3 US Focal Meeting

SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) has released presentations from its SCOAP3 US Focal meeting at the University of California at Berkeley.

Here is an excerpt from the announcement that lists the presentations:

To find out more about SCOAP3, see the About SCOAP3 page.

Acta Crystallographica Section E Adopts Author-Pays OA Model and Creative Commons License

The International Union of Crystallography has adopted a very modest publication fee ($150) to support open access to Acta Crystallographica Section E: Structure Reports Online. It has also put the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Read more about it at "Acta Crystallographica E is Open Access."

To Loan an Electronic Article from an Elsevier E-Journal, Print It, Scan It, and Send it with Ariel

Of late, there has been discussion on the Liblicense-L list about how libraries should go about performing interlibrary loan transactions for articles published in licensed e-journals.

Since, in the U.S., print journals are owned, are subject to the "first sale doctrine," and are covered by long-standing CONTU Guidelines, libraries have not had to generally grapple with complex ILL issues for them; however, e-journals from major publishers are licensed, licenses are publisher-specific, and the terms of the license agreements determine if and how ILL can be performed.

Elsevier has clarified for the list how articles from its e-journals should be handled: the article should be printed, and then "mailed, faxed or scanned into Ariel (or a similar system) as means of delivery to the borrowing library." (Ariel is an ILL system that is widely used by libraries to deliver digital copies of documents.)

To recap the Ariel workflow, the digital article should be printed and then it should be digitized for delivery via Ariel.

See the ScienceDirect Interlibrary Loan Policy for more details.

Koninklijke Bibliotheek to Preserve Portico E-Journal Archive

Koninklijke Bibliotheek will preserve a dark copy of Portico's archive of digital journals in its e-Depot service.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Portico and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands (the KB), are pleased to announce they have reached an agreement for an off-line copy of the Portico archive, which exceeds 6 million articles and 60 million files, to be held for safekeeping by the KB. Through its e-Depot program the KB has demonstrated its role in the vanguard of digital preservation. Placing a Portico-owned copy of the archive, in a secure access- and climate-controlled facility operated by the KB is one component of the replication strategy Portico is implementing to ensure the safety and security of the archive upon which a growing, international community relies. This arrangement also illustrates one way in which organizations internationally recognized for their digital preservation obligations and expertise can cooperate to form a strong, supportive network to safely preserve digital materials.

Here's a description of e-Depot from its home page:

The e-Depot is a digital archiving environment that ensures long-term access to digital objects which would otherwise be threatened by rapidly evolving software and hardware platforms as well as media decay. It is the dedicated archiving environment for the KB’s national electronic deposit collection. In addition, it will include the Dutch web archive and digitised master images. In line with the international nature of information provision, the KB has extended its e-Depot services to publishers worldwide. The e-Depot is supported by sustained research and development efforts geared towards maintaining the integrity of stored digital objects.

Here's a description of Portico from its "About Portico" page:

Portico began as the Electronic-Archiving Initiative launched by JSTOR in 2002 with a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to build upon The Foundation's seminal E-Journal Archiving Program. The charge of the Electronic-Archiving Initiative was to build a sustainable electronic-archiving model, and for more than two years, project staff worked on the development of necessary technology and engaged in extensive discussions with publishers and libraries to craft an approach that balances the needs of publishers and libraries while generating sufficient funding for the archive. In 2004, the Electronic-Archiving Initiative became a part of Ithaka Harbors, Inc., a non-profit organization with a mission to accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit of higher education around the world. Building upon extensive input gathered from commercial and not-for-profit publishers and guidance offered from libraries at a range of small, medium and large academic libraries, an electronic archiving service, known as Portico, was developed. Portico was launched in 2005 with additional support from JSTOR, Ithaka, The Library of Congress, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Indiana University Libraries Publish Open Access Journal

The Indiana University Libraries have announced that they are publishing Museum Anthropology Review in partnership with Editor Jason Baird Jackson, associate professor in the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology.

Here's a description of the journal from its Submission Information page:

Museum Anthropology Review (MAR) is an open access journal whose purpose is the wide dissemination of articles, reviews, essays, obituaries and other content advancing the field of material culture and museum studies, broadly conceived.

Read more about it at "Editorial: Museum Anthropology Review Joins IUScholarWorks at the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries, Switches to Open Journal Systems" and "IU Bloomington Libraries Publish Their First Electronic Journal, Showcasing Faculty Partnerships."

ARL Publishes NIH Public Access Policy Guide

The Association of Research Libraries has published "The NIH Public Access Policy: Guide for Research Universities."

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The new NIH Public Access Policy, which becomes effective April 7, 2008, calls for mandatory deposit in PubMed Central of peer-reviewed electronic manuscripts stemming from NIH funding. The change from a voluntary to mandatory policy creates new expectations, not just of funded investigators, but also of the grantee institutions that support those investigators.

The ARL guide, "The NIH Public Access Policy: Guide for Research Universities," includes the following sections:

  • Policy Overview
  • Institutional Responses
  • Retaining Rights
  • How to Deposit
  • Resources

The guide focuses on the implications of the NIH policy for institutions as grantees, although some information for individual investigators is included and links to further details are provided. The guide is helpful to a range of campus constituencies that may be involved in implementing the new policy, including research administrators, legal counsel, and librarians.

In addition to compliance concerns, the guide also considers the benefits of the new policy and institutions' opportunities to build on the policy requirements by seeking additional rights for using funded research to address local needs.

Reflecting the dynamic nature of campus implementation activities, the guide will be updated as more campuses release plans, resources, and tools that can serve as models for their peers.

JISC E-Journal Archive Registry Study

JISC has released "Scoping Study for a Registry of Electronic Journals That Indicates Where They Are Archived."

Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary":

The research and especially the interviews have confirmed the assumption behind the project that there is a need for more information, and more easily accessible information, about where e-journals are archived. However, what has also emerged strongly is that this issue cannot be considered in isolation, either from the overall context of relationships within the scholarly communication system, nor from other initiatives being undertaken to improve information flows e.g. in relation to the transfer of journal titles between publishers. . . .

Librarians felt that they were most likely to consult a registry in situations where they were considering taking out or renewing a subscription; considering cancellation of a print subscription in favour of an e-only subscription; contemplating relocating or discarding print holdings. The vast majority of potential users of such a registry would be library staff in university and national libraries, though organisations licensing e-journals on behalf of the library community would also be likely to use the registry to check compliance with licence conditions.

One of the key benefits of a registry is perceived to be the exposure of gaps in archive provision. This was identified by all types of stakeholder: librarians would want to be alerted to risks to any of their holdings; publishers who are making provision would like to see their efforts recognised and pressure placed on publishers who are not making satisfactory arrangements; archive organisations would also benefit as that effect fed through to more demand for their services.

The drawbacks to a registry as a solution to the acknowledged information gap were mainly seen as ones of practicality (keeping the information accurate and up to date), trust (especially whether a national solution is appropriate, and conversely whether an international solution is feasible) and sustainability of the funding model. Other solutions were suggested, mainly involving either WorldCat or ERM vendors such as Serials Solutions. The latter were also suggested as a complementary part of a solution involving, but not limited to, a registry.

A Review and Analysis of Academic Publishing Agreements and Open Access Policies

The OAK (Open Access to Knowledge) Law Project has published A Review and Analysis of Academic Publishing Agreements and Open Access Policies.

Here's an excerpt from the "Conclusion and Next Steps":

The review of publishers’ open access policies and practices found that:

  • the majority of publishers did not have a formal open access policy;
  • only four of the total sample of 64 publishers surveyed had a formal open access policy;
  • 62.5% of the publishers were able to provide sufficient information to enable them to be “colour classified” using the SHERPA/RoMEO colour classification system to denote levels of open access;
  • using the SHERPA/RoMEO colour classifications:
    • 25% of the surveyed publishers were “green” (permitting archiving of the pre-print and post-print versions of published articles);
    • 4.7% were “blue” (permitting archiving of the post-print version);
    • 6.25% were “yellow” (permitting archiving of the pre-print version);
    • 26.6% were “white” (archiving not formally supported).

Are There 200,000 "Duplicate" Articles in Journals Indexed by Medline?

Based on a recent study published in Nature, it is possible that there may be as many as 200,000 duplicate articles (either articles that were published in multiple journals or plagiarized) in journals indexed by Medline. To conduct the study, Mounir Errami and Harold Garner utilized the eTBLAST software to analyze samples of Medline article abstracts in order to estimate the prevalence of duplicate articles.

Duplicate detection is an issue of great concern to both publishers and scholars. The CrossCheck project is allowing eight publishers to test the duplicate checking as part of the editorial process in a closed-access environment. In the project's home page, it states:

Currently, existing PD [plagiarism detection] systems do not index the majority of scholarly/professional content because it is inaccessible to crawlers directed at the open web. The only scholarly literature that is currently indexed by PD systems is that which is available openly (e.g. OA, Archived or illegitimately posted copies) or that which has been made available via third-party aggregators (e.g. ProQuest). This, in turn, means that any publisher who is interested in employing PD systems in their editorial work-flow is unable to do so effectively. Even if a particular publisher doesn't have a problem with plagiarized manuscripts, they should have an interest in making sure that their own published content is not plagiarized or otherwise illegitimately copied.

In order for CrossRef members to use existing PD systems, there needs to be a mechanism through which PD system vendors can, under acceptable terms & conditions, create and use databases of relevant scholarly and professional content.

Open access advocates have pointed out that one advantage of OA is that it allows the unrestricted analysis and manipulation of the full text of freely available works. Open access makes it possible for all interested parties, including scholars and others who might not have access to closed duplicate verification databases, to conduct whatever analysis as they wish and to make the results public without having to consider potential business impacts.

Read more about it at: "Copycat Articles Seem Rife in Science Journals, a Digital Sleuth Finds" and "How Many Papers Are Just Duplicates?"

International Study of Peer Review

The Publishing Research Consortium has released "Peer Review in Scholarly Journals: Perspective of the Scholarly Community—An International Study."

Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary":

The survey thus paints a picture of academics committed to peer review, with the vast majority believing that it helps scientific communication and in particular that it improves the quality of published papers. They are willing to play their part in carrying out review, though it is worrying that the most productive reviewers appear to be overloaded. Many of them are in fact willing to go further than at present and take on responsibility for reviewing authors’ data. Within this picture of overall satisfaction there are, however, some sizeable pockets of discontent. This discontent does not always translate into support for alternative methods of peer review; in fact some of those most positive about the benefits of peer review were also the most supportive of post-publication review. Overall, there was substantial minority support for post-publication review as a supplement to formal peer review, but much less support for open review as an alternative to blinded review.

Read more about it at "Peer Review Study."

Digital Video on JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments)

In a digital video from the Google Tech Talks series, Moshe Pritsker, Editor-in-Chief of JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments), discusses that video-based journal.

Here's an excerpt from the abstract:

Contrasting the rapid advancement of scientific research itself, scientific communication still heavily relies on traditional print journals. Print journals however, lack the necessary characteristics to allow enable an effective transfer of knowledge, which is significantly impeding scientific progress. Addressing this problem, the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE, www.jove.com) implemented a novel, video-based approach to scientific publishing, based on visualization of experimental studies. Created with the participation of scientists from leading research institutions (e.g. Harvard, MIT, and Princeton), JoVE provides solutions to the "bottleneck" of the contemporary biological research: transparency and reproducibility of biological experiments. JoVE has so far released 9 monthly issues that include over 150 video-protocols on experimental approaches in developmental biology, neuroscience, microbiology and other fields.

NIH Public Access Policy Implementation

On an updated Web page and a FAQ, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has explained its implementation of the Public Access Policy required by Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008).

Here's an excerpt from the NIH Public Access Policy Web page:

How to Comply

Address Copyright

Make sure that any copyright transfer or other publication agreements allow the article to be submitted to NIH in accordance with the Policy.

Submit Article

Authors may submit an article to the journal of their choice for publication.

  1. If you choose to publish your article in certain journals, you need do nothing further to comply with the submission requirement of the Policy. See http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm for a list of these journals.
  2. For any journal other than one of those in this list, the author must:

    a. Inform the journal that the article is subject to the Public Access Policy when submitting it for publication.

    b. Make sure that any copyright transfer or other publication agreement allows the article to be submitted to NIH in accordance with the Policy. For more information, see the FAQ Whose approval do I need to submit my article to PubMed Central? and consult with your Institution.

    c. Submit the article to NIH, upon acceptance for publication. See the Submission Process for more information.

Cite Article

When citing their NIH-funded articles in NIH applications, proposals or progress reports, authors must include the PubMed Central reference number for each article.

Important Dates

  • April 7, 2008 As of April 7, 2008, all articles arising from NIH funds must be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication.
  • May 25, 2008 As of May 25, 2008, NIH applications, proposals, and progress reports must include the PubMed Central reference number when citing an article that falls under the policy and is authored or co-authored by the investigator, or arose from the investigator’s NIH award. This policy includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.

Peter Suber has made some helpful comments about the policy implementation in "New FAQ for New NIH Policy" and "Text of the NIH OA Policy."

STARGATE Report Investigates Issues with Software to Support Harvesting for Publishers without OAI-PMH-compliant Repositories

The JISC-funded extension of the STARGATE project has released the STARGATE Extension Final Report.

Here's an excerpt from the original STARGATE project page that explains its goals:

The Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR) at of Strathclyde set out to implement a low-tech solution to OAI-based disclosure for small publishers. Their STARGATE project was based on the 'static repositories' model for using OAI-PMH . . . Instead of building an OAI-compliant repository, a publisher builds a static repository, effectively an XML file of the relevant metadata on an accessible server. A separate static repository gateway handles the technical aspects of making the metadata available for harvesting, i.e. the complexity is shifted away from the publisher.

Here's an excerpt from the report's "Executive Summary":

The extension has produced a functional branded gateway that the publishing community can use to explore the use of static repositories. It will be maintained for the next year. The gateway is available at http://stargate.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/gateway/.

The project concludes that although functional the software is not suitable for deployment by a novice user. It is also effectively still in at the beta stage of development and it has only been used in a limited number of settings.

The project further suggests that the creation and maintenance of gateway(s) within the publishing community may be more suitably carried out in the same way that DOI and Purl provision is offered through a third-party service provider willing to work with developing open source software. Any deployment of a gateway by JISC to support wider participation in static repositories should also engage with the gateway software developers.

NIH Open Access Mandate Becomes Law

President Bush has signed the "Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008," which includes the NIH open access mandate. The mandate states: "The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law."

Read more about it at "OA Mandate at NIH Now Law and "Public Access Mandate Made Law."

Biomedical Digital Libraries and BioMed Central Part Company

According to "Biomedical Digital Libraries Moves to Open Journal Systems," Biomedical Digital Libraries will no longer be published by BioMed Central because "BMC's author payment model had become untenable for most of the authors wishing to publish in the journal." In the future, the journal will be published using Public Knowledge Project's Open Journal Systems without author fees.

BioMed Central has an article-processing charges waiver policy with case-by-case basis review, and it also offers a variety of article-processing charges discounts. It is not clear why these cost-reduction mechanisms did not meet author needs.

Is the End of the Print Journal Near?: New ARL Report Examines This Issue

The Association of Research Libraries has published The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What’s Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone.

Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary":

The role of the printed journal in the institutional marketplace faces a steep decline in the coming 5 to 10 years. Print journals will exist mainly to address specialized needs, users, or business opportunities. Financial imperatives will draw libraries first—and ultimately publishers also—toward a tipping point where it no longer makes sense to subscribe to or publish printed versions of most journals.

Publishers will be driven to rationalize their investments in declining print revenue streams and to finance investments in e-publishing infrastructure and emerging opportunities. Some will be faster to do so, such as those already straining from the cost burden. Others will be slower, such as those with a self-supporting base of individual subscribers or significant advertising revenue from print.

A new focus will emerge on productivity in scholarly communication. Experiments will explore new business models and new ways of conducting and facilitating research. Along the way, vexing issues such as those surrounding assurance of long-term access to the scholarly record will continue to be sorted out and perhaps even solved.

SCImago Journal & Country Rank: Journal Rankings Based on Scopus Data

The new SCImago Journal & Country Rank system utilizes data from Elsevier's Scopus database to produce a variety of scholarly journal rankings. For example, you can rank countries by the number of citable documents in library and information sciences that they produce.

The Help page provides detailed information about the free service.

Reed Elsevier Says It Will Have at Least 10% Earnings Growth in 2007

Reed Elsevier has issued a press release saying that its adjusted earnings per share at constant currencies will grow by at least 10% in 2007.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Elsevier: Subscription renewals are very strong and there is good demand for our expanding online services. The second half medical publishing programme is going well with good growth in particular in the nursing and health professional sectors. Pharma advertising markets remain weak, but represent a relatively small part of the business.

SPARC/ACRL Explore Sustainability Issues with Three Open Access Journal Publishers

SPARC and ACRL have released podcasts/transcripts of interviews about sustainability issues with Bryan Vickery (BioMed Central), Mark Patterson (Public Library of Science), and Paul Peters (Hindawi Publishing Corporation). It has also released a matrix that analyzes the responses of these OA journal publishers about sustainability issues.

International Coalition of Library Consortia Protests AAAS Decision to Drop JSTOR

The International Coalition of Library Consortia, which represents 72 consortia, has issued a statement regarding the American Association for the Advancement of Science decision to sever its relationship to JSTOR.

Here's an excerpt from the statement:

The ICOLC strongly objects to the recent decision by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to discontinue its participation in JSTOR, including withholding future issues of its premier publication, Science, from the JSTOR archive and prohibiting JSTOR from making issues of Science currently held in the archive available to new JSTOR participants.

JSTOR has been a singular success in meeting the needs of students, scholars, librarians, and publishers. JSTOR offers a robust platform for cross-disciplinary discovery and integration of content that extends the multi-disciplinary reach of Science to students and faculty, including those in non-scientific disciplines. In addition, JSTOR offers to publishers a moving wall policy that protects their ability to obtain current subscription revenue to support ongoing publication.

Science is an outstanding source of high-quality, vetted information covering all areas of science, the inclusion of which enhances the value, breadth, and quality of the JSTOR archive. The decision to discontinue participation in JSTOR is in conflict with AAAS' mission, as a non-profit, membership-based organization, of advancing science and serving society. Withholding future issues of Science from JSTOR, and prohibiting JSTOR from making previously archived Science content available to future JSTOR participants, is an action which diminishes the value and contribution of both AAAS and JSTOR to the international community of researchers, the academy, and society.

Opensecrets.Org Lists Reed Elsevier as One of Sen. Inhofe's Top Contributors

In a list of Sen. James Inhofe's top contributors for the 2001-2006 Senate election cycle, Opensecrets.Org identifies Reed Elsevier Inc. as his 11th largest contributor, with $13,250 in contributions. Opensecrets.Org notes:

The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Before he withdrew them, Sen. Inhofe was the sponsor of two amendments” to delete or weaken the NIH Open Access Mandate in the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill.

Opensecrets.Org also provides summary information about Reed Elsevier's 2006 lobbying activity, which includes a chart showing 1998-2007 totals.

Inhofe Withdraws Amendments, NIH Open Access Mandate Passes Senate

Peter Suber reports that Sen. James Inhofe withdrew his amendments to the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill that would have deleted or weakened the NIH open access mandate, and that the bill has passed the Senate with the mandate intact.

The House and Senate bills will be reconciled in the fall, and President Bush should receive the final bill by year's end. It is anticipated that President Bush will veto the bill; however, the mandate's strong showing during Congressional deliberations should help ensure its future passage in post-veto legislation.

Here's an excerpt from "Defying President Bush, Senate Passes Spending Bill for Health and Education Programs" (subscription required for full access):

The president has threatened to veto the measure over what he has called "irresponsible and excessive" spending. It would take a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to override a veto. The Senate, which approved the bill 75 to 19, apparently could muster that margin, but the House might not. It passed its version of the bill in July by a vote of 276 to 140, 14 votes shy of the two-thirds mark.

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a press release about the legislative victory.

Read more about it at "More on Inhofe" and "OA Mandate at NIH Passes the Senate."

Text of the Inhofe Amendments That Affect the NIH Open Access Mandate

Below is the text of Sen. James Inhofe's amendments to the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill that affect the NIH open access mandate (thanks to Heather Joseph at SPARC).

Amendment 3416:

To strike provision to maintain the NIH voluntary research public access policy

Beginning on page 76 strike line 24 and all that follows through line 7 on page 77.

Amendment 3417:

To modify provisions to maintain the NIH voluntary research public access policy

On page 77 line 7 insert before the period the following:

'and in addition only where allowed by and in accordance with the policies of the publishers who have conducted the peer review and accepted the manuscripts for publication'

Here's the affected section of the bill:

Page 76

24 SEC. 221. The Director of the National Institutes of
25 Health shall require that all investigators funded by the

Page 77

1 NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National
2 Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic
3 version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon ac-
ceptance for publication to be made publicly available no
5 later than 12 months after the official date of publication:
6 Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access
7 policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

ALA Says Contact Senate Before Noon Tomorrow to Support NIH Open Access Mandate

The American Library Association is strongly recommending that U.S. citizens who want to support the NIH open access mandate by voicing their opposition to the amendments (#3416 and #3417) to the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill proposed by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) do so by noon on Monday, October 22nd.

Here's the latest action alert from ALA: "Fight Continues for Public Access to NIH Medical Information—Urge Your Senators to Support NIH Public Access Policy (and Oppose Inhofe Amendments)"

You can use a cut-and-paste version of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access text about the amendments to simplify the process of sending the e-mail via the ALA Web form, but personalizing this text with an added sentence or two is recommended.