What societies want from a publishing partner

Societies, whose publishing programmes are primarily mission‐driven, play a unique role in funding and disseminating research. But by their nature – often small and with limited resources – they are particularly prone to the turbulence currently affecting scholarly publishing. BMJ Journals is itself a society publisher but also publishes under contract for other societies. During 2008, we carried out research to assess societies' evolving needs from their publishing partnerships. The changing expectations and behaviours of the next generation of researchers are considered to be as much of a threat as declining revenues. Societies are planning to expand professional development activities and to maximise their use of emerging technologies to help maintain and grow membership. Although surplus is a low priority for societies and, accordingly, for their publishing programmes, a high financial return is nonetheless a key criterion when choosing publishing partners – as are reputation, technological innovation, and individual title development.     

Learned societies and electronic publishing

Electronic publishing techniques are introducing inevitable changes in scholarly publishing as a whole and in the academic journal publishing business in particular. What will be the effect of the changes on the function and role of learned societies?     

Toward a scalable and sustainable approach to open access publishing and archiving for humanities and social sciences societies: a proposal

The proposal we offer here (and in the more extensive ‘white paper’ proposal on which this article is based) tackles head‐on the open access (OA) business models that have proven particularly problematic for implementation of OA in the humanities and social sciences (HSS). Our proposal suggests all tertiary institutions contribute to systemic support of the research process itself, including its entire scholarly output. A bold rethinking of the economics of OA by way of partnerships among scholarly societies and academic libraries funded by an institutional fee structure based on a student‐and‐faculty per‐capita sliding scale, our plan is nevertheless intentionally incremental. Our proposal focuses first on HSS and primarily in the United States, but just as research and scholarship are increasingly global and collaborative, our plan is not bound by discipline or national borders, but can be adopted by all those looking for a more equitable and sustainable OA model.     

What do societies and publishers want from publishing partnerships?

This article looks at the requirements of both the society and publisher when entering into a publishing partnership. These partnerships are driven by more than just income considerations. Visibility for the product and expertise in both publishing and the academic assessment of content and publication are considered. The assumption that the society only provides academic assessment and the publisher only provides publishing skills is questioned.     

How publishing has helped and hindered me: Experiences and advice from a blind reader and publisher

Key points

• Braille remains a relevant technology for access.
• Properly structured content is vital for ease of understanding, as are correctly labelled links and action buttons.
• Accessibility has hugely improved in the past 30 years but remains a fragile benefit, relying on stringent adherence to standards.

     

ICT and rural societies: Opportunities for growth

The application of ICT solutions for the development of rural India and other developing countries opens up a vast range of possibilities. Giving an opportunity to the vast majority of the population living in rural areas, to cross the digital divide to obtain access to information resources and services provided by ICT is the next revolution waiting to happen. Although this is a development issue, it is just not the government, non-government organizations or the rural masses that have a role to play. Private profit-making institutions can develop solutions to capture the hitherto unrecognized markets, make profits and at the same time aid the rural societies. The new technologies being developed can help surmount barriers present in providing information resources at a low cost and make applications feasible and profitable. This paper presents some cases where ICT has been effectively used for the benefit of the rural societies and analyzes the opportunities that lie in this sphere. The cases range from successful use of ICT in governance, to ICT solutions for improved profits to ICT in microfinance. A case of an initiative by a large mainstream corporation to reach out to the rural sector, help in development and realize profits mutually is also presented. The projects discussed should generate more interest and facilitate private investment in the hitherto virgin territory. A large number of hurdles still remain but creative ideas, breakthrough ICT technologies and committed organizations can usher in the next revolution in the developing world.     

Empirical Indications for Choosing Reference Librarianship as a Profession:

No abstract available for this article.     

Developing a new publishing model for interdisciplinary research

It is widely recognized that interdisciplinary collaboration in science is crucial to the success of the research endeavor, but that long‐established institutional structures based on a firm division of the disciplines tend to make such teamwork difficult to achieve in practice. The development of the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews publishing model highlights some of the opportunities and challenges of crossing these traditional lines of demarcation.     

Priorities for publishing research: A multidisciplinary agenda

Publishing research, to be effective and useful, requires the participation of scholars and practitioners in many disciplines: literature, history, sociology, psychology, technology, economics, and education. Examples are drawn from trade and scholarly publishing. The results of such research can benefit all segments of the industry. Beth Luey is director, Scholarly Publishing Program at Arizona State University and have been editor of Publishing Research Quarterly since 1988. She is the author of several books, includingHandbook for Academic Authors.     

Electronic publishing: implications for health sciences libraries and librarians

Increasingly we hear of "electronic publishing" in the form of books and journals made available as databases, either through traditional online services or through electronic message services. This paper explores its potential impact on the medical library community and on the relationship between end user and librarian. The librarian's new roles as intermediary, facilitator, and advocate for end users are examined. The question of developing expertise for evaluating information as well as facilitating access is addressed.     

互联网+科技期刊出版——构建科技期刊编校平台的设想

"互联网+"新业态给传统行业发展带来了新的机遇.提出了构建利用互联网挖掘、整合全社会的编校资源,满足期刊社外包需求的方案:科技期刊编校平台由期刊协会(或出版管理机构)与期刊社共同搭建,实行会员制管理.平台除了匹配供需信息外,还具备培训编辑和评价编校质量的功能,用以储备编辑资源、提升编辑业务水平和保证编校质量.     

Open access and predatory publishing: a survey of the publishing practices of academic pharmacists and nurses in the United States

Objective:Academics are under great pressure to publish their research, the rewards for which are well known (tenure, promotion, grant funding, professional prestige). As open access publishing gains acceptance as a publishing option, researchers may choose a “predatory publisher.” The purpose of this study is to investigate the motivations and rationale of pharmacy and nursing academics in the United States to publish in open access journals that may be considered “predatory.”Methods:A 26-item questionnaire was programmed in Qualtrics and distributed electronically to approximately 4,500 academic pharmacists and nurses, 347 of whom completed questionnaires (~8%). Pairwise correlations were performed followed by a logistic regression to evaluate statistical associations between participant characteristics and whether participants had ever paid an article processing fee (APF).Results:Participants who had published more articles, were more familiar with predatory publishing, and who were more concerned about research metrics and tenure were more likely to have published in open access journals. Moderate to high institutional research intensity has an impact on the likelihood of publishing open access. The majority of participants who acknowledged they had published in a predatory journal took no action after realizing the journal was predatory and reported no negative impact on their career for having done so.ConclusionThe results of this study provide data and insight into publication decisions made by pharmacy and nursing academics. Gaining a better understanding of who publishes in predatory journals and why can help address the problems associated with predatory publishing at the root.