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In message <199501302035.UAA16343@nhm.ac.uk> Norm MacLeod writes: > Perhaps the saturation effect that John is seeing in his data has more to do > with the economics of publishing a journal these days then with the actual > amount of paleontological output... If publication > budgets are a problem perhaps (at least part of) the answer is for the > societies to engage in (or sponsor) some type of on-line publication > series. I think Norm is largely right about economics, but there is another factor, competition between journals for the best papers. Recession or no recession, the number of new titles continues to proliferate. Journals need to attract subscribers to survive, and for that they need good papers. Journal editors see one of two solutions. The first is to welcome anything and everything, and become a 'dustbin' printing huge amounts of nothing very much, usually the stuff rejected by everyone else. This fills the pages nicely. This used to be OK, but now that people pay more attention to a journal's citation rating, this is no longer a viable strategy. And of course it banishes the journal to the status of the archival rather than the current. They collect, over-stuffed and under-read, on library shelves until the inevitable day when the librarian cancels the subscription. The second strategy seems riskier and even counter-productive, but it is the best one. In times of boom or bust, journal editors should seek for higher standards in what they publish. If one runs the risk of not having very much on the stocks to print now and then, the benefits should be obvious: 1) low backlog means rapid publication, which means happy authors! 2) high standards will out -- subscribers and authors are not stupid. Good journals attract subscriptions, and will also attract good papers. The editor will soon have the pick of what to publish, all of which will be good. Standards will go up, the citation rating will follow, more and more people will submit their best stuff, the journal will make money, which means happy publishing directors! The temptation will be to increase pagination (and costs) to publish all this great material the journal is now receiving. This must be resisted at all costs for the sake of standards. Of course, the cost is the occasional disgruntled author, but that is a price to be paid, sadly. One could argue that, were one an editor of a specialty journal, one has a *duty* to publish material one receives. Not so! One should always be in a position to pick and choose from the best. In this way the journal will be an active participant in the continued health of their field rather than an impotent bystander. Another thing that John Alroy should watch for is the increasing tendency for people to publish the same work over a series of papers. This consequence of 'publish or perish' looks good on the CV but needlessly increases the number of papers. Journal editors should be on the lookout for this and insist that *their* readers get the full story, or not at all. Of course, this position is best adopted from a position of strength. Slicing up one's work is rife in molecular and cell biology, but is also evident elsewhere, and I wouldn't imagine that palaeontology is immune. Online publications -- this will happen, in time. The problem is less with technology than with cost control. It's easy to put something out on the internet, but less easy to get people to pay for it (which, in any case, seems somewhat contrary to the spirit of the thing). The middle way is to make CD-ROM versions of journals. This is already well under way. -- Henry Gee ------------------------------------------------------------ Nature, henry@chiswick.demon.co.uk 4 Little Essex Street, naturelondon@mcimail.com London WC2R 3LF nature@naturedc.com tel +44 171 836 6633 x 2473 fax +44 171 836 9934 ------------------------------------------------------------
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