So much of how academic journals come to be published is mysterious to the end user, from what makes a journal cost what it costs to why or why not the journal is available electronically. You know what is starting to impress me more and more? I appreciate when a publishing entity makes a clear statement on why they do things the way they do. Case in point, Economics Bulletin. They have a whole page on their Web site devoted to why an electronic publishing format benefits their members, according to three specific criteria. The criteria they identify are dissemination, archiving, and certification. See here for the page.
Don’t miss this thoughtful comment on this page about young publications that are born digital having a possible disadvantage to those journals that have existed in the stable, old world of print and migrate to digital form: “The power of incumbency makes it extremely hard for any new journal, especially an electronic one, to develop the status that would allow its endorsement to carry the reputational weight required to certify that an article is important. This is just the way of the intellectual marketplace.”
It makes sense to me as an academic that I would want to encourage the organizations I belong to to think about these things and come up with clear statements about them. Is this important to you too, or is this a concern only for librarians that also do research?
Are there other publishing entities out there that you know of that have statements on their Web sites like Economics Bulletin? Leave the URL of the site(s) in a comment.
