Search

The article reports that academic publishers in the U.S. are looking for ways to track mentions or citations of journal articles on social media and other online sources, including a pilot project with British company Altmetric.

Discusses findings from autobiographical papers belonging to Alfred and Blanche Knopf, the New York Jewish publishers. The author's quest for information on the cultural history of Jewish entrepreneurs of past; What the papers revealed about the Knopfs and their marriage; The author's observations on the couple after reading the papers.

This article presents updates related to academic publishing in the U.S. Like elite colleges, top scientific journals often advertise their rejection rates--to show how exclusive they are. But the open-access publisher Public Library of Science is now moving in the opposite direction. PLoS is starting a multidisciplinary journal in August that will publish papers no matter how unimportant their results are. In another news, the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine plans next month to retract a 1997 paper that was prepared by corporate consultants but did not acknowledge their contribution.

The article reports that the Smithsonian Institution has reconstituted its scholarly publishing program in a newly announced partnership with Rowman & Littlefield. The new imprint, known as the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, will be open only to authors who are directly affiliated with the Smithsonian's museums and research units. It is speculated that one possible point of tension has to do with founding secretary Joseph Henry's 150-year-old principle that the Smithsonian's papers should be shared freely with U.S. libraries. Commentary from publisher John Sisk is provided, along with an explanation of how the new program will work.

The article reports that a coalition of journal publishers and university libraries in the U.S. is starting an experimental archive of online journals that will be held in reserve in case a journal's publisher goes out of business or is otherwise unable to continue providing online access to its papers. The pilot program uses peer-to-peer archiving software developed at Stanford University, called Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe, or Lockss. The journal archive is called Controlled Lockss, or Clockss.

Presents updates on research publications in the U.S. as of March 11, 2005. Launch of the "Nature Physics" journal; Decision of Blackwell Publishing to allow authors to make their papers available for free to potential readers.

Reports on the unveiling of a preprint server on the Elsevier Science ChemWeb site. Opinion that this form of publishing is more efficient, democratic and scholarly than the print-journal system; Concern that papers posted online would then be rejected for print publication; Statement that experts believe that the American Chemical Society should make use of the advantages that preprint servers offer.

Presents news briefs concerning the publication of scholarly books as of February 12, 1999. Review of a book dealing with race in America entitled `By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race,' by Leonard Steinhorn and Barbara Diggs-Brown; The library of the University of Oregon's receipt of private funding for the establishment of a printing press aimed at publishing limited editions of books made with letterpress printing, fine papers, and unique designs.