Hardin Scholarly Communication News

Peer Pressure: Scholarly Journals’ Premier Status Is Diluted by Web; More Research Is Free Online Amid Spurt of Start-Ups; Publishers’ Profits at Risk; A Revolt on UC’s Campuses
Abstract:
The publishers’ prestige derives from the rigorous system of peer review, in which a journal’s editorial board will select experts in a field to vet articles. At some top scholarly journals, less than 10% of submitted articles make it into a publication. In turn, the peer- review system lends authority to a scholar’s work, and has long been a springboard to academic advancement.

Some scholars think publishing should operate like the Linux computer operating system, where programmers build on each other’s work in an ongoing, collaborative project. In the scholarly realm, a database called arXiv — pronounced "archive," as if the "x" were the Greek letter "chi" — has become a repository of scholarship in the physics field. It’s owned and operated by Cornell University and partially supported by the National Science Foundation. If the UC administration has its way, something like that would be the norm throughout academia.

"That alarmed us," says a Reed Elsevier spokeswoman in Amsterdam. More than 100 UC faculty members serve as senior editors of Elsevier journals and about 1,000 serve on editorial boards. The publisher fanned out across the campuses, drumming up support among friendly faculty with breakfasts and other meetings. The spokeswoman says the company concluded that most UC faculty members didn’t know about the boycott call or didn’t support it.
[Bernard Wysocki Jr.. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: May 23, 2005. pg. A.1]

Full-text access available to Univ. of Iowa students, faculty and staff only:
http://proquest.umi.com/

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) may have made its U.S. policy on archiving research it funds voluntary, but last week the policy got a big boost from overseas. The Wellcome Trust, the prestigious UK-based independent research funding body, announced that, beginning October 1, 2005, all papers from new research projects must be deposited in PubMed Central–or in a UK version of PubMed Central, when constructed, within six months of publication. The Wellcome Trust also announced that existing grant holders would have a year delay, to October 1, 2006, which will give them time to adjust to the new policy and address potential problems.

The news is a boost for the NIH policy. After the policy’s recent implementation, a number of journals had announced policies that would keep articles out of PubMed for the maximum recommended time allowed–up to a year–in direct contrast to what NIH director Elias Zerhouni had predicted. Wellcome, the UK’s biggest non-governmental funder of biomedical research, has now put some teeth back into the policy, by implementing on its own a policy that mirrors the NIH’s initial draft policy. Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, said the mandatory deposit policy was meant to maximize the value of archives like PubMed Central. "Digital archives are only as good as the information stored in them," Walport said. "That’s why we feel it’s important to encourage our researchers along this path, one I hope others will follow."
[Library Journal Academic Newswire (TM), May 24, 2005]

Industry-leading STM publisher Elsevier has taken aim at a serials pricing study, commissioned by Oxford University Press and carried out by the Library and Information Statistics Unit (LISU) at Loughborough University in the UK, which placed Elsevier’s "median" price for biomedical journals at the top of 11 publishers at £731 per title ($1336). The LISU study was recently referenced in LIBRARY JOURNAL’s 2005 Periodical Price survey (April 15, 2005) as an "exhaustive" study, adding that librarians "looking for comprehensive cost/value analysis will find a wealth of data in the report." Unfortunately, contends Elsevier director of research Mayur Amin, the data in the LISU is both incomplete and rife with errors. In a letter to LIBRARY JOURNAL, a portion of which will be published in the June 15 issue, Amin noted that only 11 of "several hundred" publishers were included in the study and that some sizable publishers were omitted, potentially skewing the results.

More critically, however, Amin claims that, of Elsevier’s 589 biomedical titles used in the LISU study, 57 of those titles "are not scholarly journals but sections of abstracting and indexing databases or services" and that "over 290 legitimate biomedical journals" are excluded. The result is that that the median price for Elsevier biomedical journals quoted in the LISU study is overstated by hefty 81 percent. "Any comparison based on such a huge error is clearly misleading," Amin wrote. In a detailed critique of the LISU study, shared with the LJ Academic Newswire, Amin’s own analysis concluded that the median price for 790 Elsevier titles was closer to £401 ($733). Amin told the LJ Academic Newswire he has alerted LISU and OUP officials of his findings and is awaiting their review of the data and methods. LISU officials, contacted by email, did not comment by press time, but Amin said that both responded to him, telling him they would review their study and respond to Amin’s findings.
[Library Journal Academic Newswire (TM), May 24, 2005]

Bowker, a leading publisher of bibliographic information in North America, released statistics this week showing that book publishing in the U.S. has reached record numbers. According to statistics compiled from its BOOKS IN PRINT database, Bowker projects that U.S. title output in 2004 increased by a robust 14 percent, to 195,000 new titles and editions. “2004 marked a return to pre-9/11 patterns of publishing,” said Andrew Grabois, senior director of publisher relations and content development for New Providence, N.J.-based Bowker. Leading the way was adult fiction, which reversed a three-year plateau and surged an amazing 43 percent to 25,184 new titles and editions, the highest total ever recorded for that category.

Despite a tough economic climate, university presses also showed solid growth, increasing their title output 12.3 percent to 14,484 titles and editions, reversing a 4.3 percent decline in 2003. Since 1995, new titles have increased 72 percent for all U.S. publishers, including 12 percent for university presses. In fact, Bowker stats show that university presses posted increases in almost all disciplines, with only philosophy and psychology experiencing significant declines. For more, visit http://www.bookwire.com/bookwire/decadebookproduction.html
[Library Journal Academic Newswire (TM), The Publishing Report, May 26, 2005]

Journal of Clinical Investigation (Open Access)
Fulltext v1+ (1924+)
http://pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=120&action=archive
ISSN: 0021-9738

Medical History (Open Access)
Fulltext v1+ (1957+)
http://pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=228&action=archive
ISSN: 0025-7273

Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences
Fulltext v1+ (1919+)
http://pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=2&action=archive
ISSN: 0027-8424

Skull Base
Fulltext v13 (2003) [additional years forthcoming]
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=223&action=archive
Print ISSN: 1531-5010 | Online ISSN: 1532-0065

Skull Base is a multidisciplinary journal that publishes original articles containing clinical and experimental information of use to the practicing skull base surgeon. The journal draws from the expertise of Anatomy, Maxillo-Facial Surgery, Neuro-Opthalmology, Neuro-Radiology, Neurosurgery, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and Plastic Surgery. Highlighting new technologies and surgical innovations in clinical studies, the journal publishes results and significant problem cases.

Peer-reviewed articles include original contributions, reviews, case reports and clinical problems relative to the skull base from all medical surgical disciplines.

Skull Base is produced in a joint effort by the skull base societies of North America <http://www.nasbs.org/>, Europe, Germany, Japan, and Korea.

Clinical Medicine & Research
Fulltext v1+ (2003+)
http://pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=252&action=archive
Print ISSN: 1539-4182 |  Online ISSN: 1554-6179

Clinical Medicine & Research is a new peer reviewed publication of original scientific medical research that is relevant to a broad audience of medical researchers and healthcare professionals.

International Journal of Medical Sciences
Fulltext v1+ (2004+)
http://pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=257&action=archive
ISSN: 1449-1907

The International Journal of Medical Sciences serves wide ranges of international audiences, including medical researchers, pharmaceutical employees, students, general and specialized clinicians.

International Journal of Biological Sciences
Fulltext v1+ (2005+)
http://pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=294&action=archive
ISSN: 1449-2288

International Journal of Biological Sciences targets wide ranges of international audiences of researchers and biotechnology company employees. The scope of the Journal includes cell biology, developmental biology, structural biology, microbiology, molecular biology & genetics, biochemistry, biotechnology, biodiversity, ecology, marine biology, plant biology, and bioinformatics.

A Letter distributed by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition):

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is calling on Congress to unreasonably restrict PubChem, a freely accessible database that connects chemical information with facts in numerous public databases. It is a critical component of NIH’s Molecular Libraries Initiative, which in turn is a key element of the NIH strategic "roadmap" to speed new medical treatments and improve healthcare.

ACS claims that PubChem competes with its Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). In reality, PubChem and the Chemical Abstracts Service databases are complementary, not duplicative. If ACS succeeds in eliminating PubChem, scientific progress will be throttled. The University of California Office of Scholarly Communication has created a page laying out the facts of this issue (http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acs_pubchem.html). This page collects the position statements, the major documents, and a list of actions that can support PubChem. Among these documents is an open letter in support of PubChem from Peter Murray-Rust of the Cambridge University (UK) Chemistry Department and Henry Rzepa, Professor of Chemistry at the UK’s Imperial College. The letter states in part that “In our laboratories we are using PubChem for systematic research and are enhancing its value by publishing the results to the world….By sharing resources freely we detect and correct errors, and encourage innovation in the way we access information. Many developments in bioscience and healthcare come not from the wet laboratory, but through computational knowledge-driven methods. PubChem represents the start of such a process in chemical bioscience.” (The letter is available in full at https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1961.html).

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has also spoken out in support of PubChem. In a letter to Rep. Ralph Regula, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Related Agencies, the AAMC urged Congress to continue support for this vital resource.