Real inflation of journal prices: medical journals, U.S. journals, and Brandon list journals

Increases in price during the last twenty years were studied for the journals listed in the 1983 Brandon list, and during the last fifteen years for all medical journals and for U.S. periodicals overall. When compared with increases in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), prices in all three categories of publications have increased much more rapidly than have prices overall. Libraries whose journal-acquisition budgets increased merely at the same rate as the CPI during the periods examined today can purchase only 50% to 70% of the journals they purchased in 1963. This information should help librarians justify budget increases.     

Update on inflation of journal prices: medical journals, U.S. journals, and Brandon/Hill list journals

This paper examines the increases in prices for the last twenty years for the journals listed in the 1987 Brandon/Hill list and for the last twelve years for those on a list of medical and general periodicals published annually in Library Journal. This information is compared to the general U.S. inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index. Despite the decline in the general rate of inflation, the buying power of libraries has continued to dwindle. Librarians need to use this information when justifying increased budget requests. They also need to interact more effectively with publishers to resolve this problem. The buying power of the dollar (as compared to the 1975 dollar) spent on the Brandon/Hill list journals is now 59% of that of a dollar spent in the general economy. This compares to 64% in 1983, when this research was last updated.     

Foreign Language Skills and Academic Library Job Announcements: A Survey and Trends Analysis, 1966–2006

This study examines academic and research librarian positions that require foreign language skills. Technical and public services are most likely to require language knowledge, while administrator and system librarian positions are the least likely. Overall, the requirements show a continued rise until the mid-1980s and a declining trend after this point.     

Proceeding papers in journals versus the “regular” journal publications

In the present paper we proceed from recent results by Gonzalez-Albo and Bordons (2011) obtained from studying the role and impact of proceedings literature in LIS journals. We extend the research to all fields of the sciences and social sciences and address additional research questions concerning publication frequency and citation impact as well as their differences in individual journals and subject fields.     

An assessment of the accessibility of PDF versions of selected journal articles published in a WCAG 2.0 era (2014–2018)

Two hundred portable document format (PDF) articles from four Web of Science‐indexed disability‐related journals were analysed to assess their accessibility. Fifty articles from each journal published between 2014 and 2018 were examined using expert manual inspection, Adobe Acrobat Pro XI, PDF Accessibility Checker 3 and NVDA screen reader. Results show that only 15.5% of the documents were tagged, only 10.5% had alternative text for images, 74.5% had bookmarks to facilitate navigation, and 87% had meaningful titles in their title fields. However, image alternative texts were meaningless, and title fields were not displayed when the document was open. However, all the documents had accessibility permissions enabled; hence, they could be read with Adobe Acrobat Pro XI Read Out Loud feature and NVDA screen reader. All the articles had an alternative HTML version of their full text in the same location on their website as the PDF versions. The inconsistency with which each PDF was produced suggests the need for an improvement in the workflow process to improve accessibility.     

Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals 2007–2012: a bibliometric study

This paper presents the bibliometric characteristics of 32 biomedical open access journals published by Academic Journals and International Research Journals – the two Nigerian publishers in Jeffery Beall's list of 23 predatory open access publishers in 2012. Data about the journals and the authors of their articles were collected from the websites of the publishers, Google Scholar and Web of Science. As at December 2012, the journals had together produced a total of 5,601 papers written by 5,599 authors, and received 12,596 citations. Authors from Asia accounted for 56.79% of the publications; those from Africa wrote 28.35% while Europe contributed 7.78%. Authors from Africa accounted for 18.25% of the citations these journals received, and this is about one‐third the number of citations by authors in Asia (54.62%). At country level, India ranks first in the top 10 citer countries, while Nigeria, the host country of the journals, ranked eighth. More in‐depth studies are required to develop further information about the journals such as how much scientific information the journals contain, as well as the science literacy of the authors and the editorial.     

The economics of scholarly journals: a case study on a society‐published journal

This article re‐examines the economics of publishing scholarly journals and illustrates the dilemma of publisher identity and publication format with a case study of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's Media Management and Economics division. The study investigates the perceived interest and demand for a society‐published journal for the field of media management and economics and the preferred format for that journal – print or online. Results showed a divided opinion on the support of a society‐published journal and no consideration of the benefits or harms of journal publishing to the society. The print journal, though a desirable format for authors, is deemed uneconomical. The online journal is viewed as a feasible publication outlet, but its status as a prestigious journal is doubtful. Applications of scholarly journal publishing and economic models to the case are discussed.