Journals Going Digital Only–Lessons for Librarians AND Faculty!

from the Krafty Librarian at http://kraftylibrarian.com/

July 14th, 2009

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an article about the American Chemical Society ending the print editions and begin producing only online journals for all but three of their journals.  It was a financial decision.  “Printing and distribution costs now exceed revenues from print journals,” according to a story in Ars Technica which The Chronicle sites.

On the biomedical side of things BMJ was one of the first journals to use the online version as their official version instead of the printed version.  BMJ’s “continuous publication” means that all articles appear on bmj.com before being included in an issue of the print journal. While this has caused some among readers and librarians, it is clearly a just the beginning of what is soon to come.

Advertising dollars, subscriptions, and even article submissions are all affected in some way as the switch from the printed issue to the online issue happens within the publishing industry.  In some areas there are great opportunities and promise with an online article such as the multitude of ways that data, images, sound, etc. can now be better represented.  But for every growth opportunity there will be some growing pains….

As we move away from the printed issue librarians and readers will need to wean themselves off of page numbers and rely upon the doi for citation and reference purposes.  It is a little awkward but doable.  One big hurdle we librarians must start to deal with is archives.  If a journal goes all online such as the American Chemical Society journals, there is no printed issue subscription to hold in archives on our shelves.  The debate about keeping the print copy for just in case circumstances becomes pointless if there is no print edition to keep.  ILL issues need to be ironed out a little better.  It is common fair use policy to ILL a copy or scanned image of the printed article to another library via email or Illiad.  Things get murky when dealing with the online copy.  Some journal publishers have adopted the same fair use policies for their online editions as they have for the printed editions.  Other publishers have far more restrictive policies on fair use and ILL of the online article.  A great many publishers do not have any policies regarding ILL and their online articles.

Finally we as librarians need to start looking at ourselves and our libraries to see how we are set up to handle the transition.  We are already beginning to see some of this in the shifting perception of the library as a repository of information to an information services provider. As librarians we need to evaluate how we personally are ready for this kind of shift.  Do we know our IP ranges?  Are we aware of the journals that have wonky ILL policies for online editions?  Do we have access methods established (A-Z, LinkOut, etc.)?  Do we have education and elevator speeches ready to help some of our patrons?  How are we doing in ”training” our administration to not be fooled into thinking that just because it is online it is cheaper or free?  There are other issues and challenges to consider, these are just a few that I can easily think of and describe….see entire posting here:  http://kraftylibrarian.com/?p=107

From the CHE: For Advice on Publishing in the Digital World, Scholars Turn to Campus Libraries…

By JENNIFER HOWARD

“Rapidly changing” is the term most often used these days to describe the landscape of scholarly communication. Scholars have to clear new and higher hurdles as they bump up against copyright and fair-use issues, open-access mandates, and a baffling array of publication and dissemination models.

How much of his own published work can a scholar post on a personal Web site without raising his publisher’s ire? How much of someone else’s work can he use in his course pack without trampling on fair use and risking a fine or legal action? How does a researcher upload her work to her institution’s repository, and are there consequences if she opts out? Those are just some of the questions that professors may find themselves tripping over.

Where can researchers find a guide to lead them through this 21st-century obstacle course?

The library, of course…

See entire article at:  http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=SQgZmbjzGSvWH5HvXSRK9prxtWX9jcVs

Impact of Open Access Publishing of Society Journals…

Something to think about from the Publishing Archeology site: 

What if the Society for American Archaeology were to make its journals Open Access?

 

What would be the positive and negative impacts if the SAA were to transform its scholarly journals (American Antiquity, “AA;” and Latin American Antiquity, “LAA”) from Toll Access to Open Access (“OA”)? This entry is a thought experiment whose purpose is to stimulate thinking about OA issues. I’m sure there are relevant factors that I am unaware of or can’t think of right now.

Positive Impacts

1. Improved quality of articles and book reviews.
2. Vastly increased access to the journal.
3. Faster publication of articles and the reduction of backlogs.
4. Journal web sites.
5. An opportunity for journal reorganization….

Negative Impacts

1. Loss of subscription revenue.
2. Potential death of the printed versions of the journals….

The entire posting is at:  http://publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-if-society-for-american.html

 

ARL Offers Learning Opportunity — Scholarly Communication Outreach: Crafting Messages that Grab Faculty Attention

To be held March 11-12, 2009 in Seattle

• Librarians supporting scholarly-communication programs want to know how to identify issues that will resonate with faculty at their institutions and how to present those issues in ways that generate positive engagement with faculty. If this describes your situation, you won’t want to miss the new ARL/ACRL Institute on Scholarly Communication workshop “Scholarly Communication Outreach: Crafting Messages that Grab Faculty Attention,” March 11–12, 2009, in Seattle, Washington.
• In the tradition of other Institute events, this workshop will emphasize active learning and hands-on work by participants, both individually and in groups. Throughout the workshop, participants will have structured opportunities to reflect on how to apply what they are learning to their own institution’s outreach activities, to share information and test ideas, and to begin planning for future outreach.

More info about the workshop here:  http://www.arl.org/sc/institute/inst-events/0309workshop.shtml

What is Open Access and why should I care?

Open Access is a growing international movement that uses the Internet to throw open the locked doors that once hid knowledge. It encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society.

Open Access is the principle that publicly funded research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it’s gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it.

The Open Access philosophy was firmly articulated in 2002, when the Budapest Open Access Initiative was introduced. It quickly took root in the scientific and medical communities because it offered an alternative route to research literature that was frequently closed off behind costly subscription barriers.

Now Open Access is on a roll. Recent Funder Mandates — including that of the US National Institutes of Health (the world’s largest research funder), which now requires that all their funded research be placed in an openly accessible database — have further strengthened the prospects for Open Access to all research.

A new website at http://openaccessday.org/ has recently been established.

Open Access Day is October 14. 

This educational and fun series of events, competitions, and give-aways is brought to you by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science (PLoS).

Open Access Day will help to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access, including recent mandates and emerging policies, within the international higher education community and the general public.

Here’s what Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC said about Open Access Day:

“The momentum behind Open Access to research has been accelerating for some time now, even before the mandates at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Harvard University. Events beyond the US especially underscore the higher education community’s commitment to having the access they need. Open Access Day will provide a perfect way for folks to come together, consider and celebrate the ramifications of the global shift that we are experiencing”….More