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The purpose of this paper is to consider the economic perspective in open access publishing. The status of the article processing charges in open access journals is explored and highlighted.

The study is based on the analysis of journals indexed by Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the fee structure levied by them as article processing charges (APCs).

Open access journal publishers have to evolve a mechanism that will share the burden of the authors interested in publishing in OA journals that levy article processing charges.

The study can act as an eye‐opener for the publishers and associations affiliated with authors to support them and their works in making them publishable in open access journals which charge fees for article publishing. Also, the study can be extended on the basis of economic models that open access journals share in different disciplines and additional work can be carried out to highlight the perception of the authors who are benefitted from article processing charges.

An economic divide between the authors who belong to the developed nations and the authors who reside from third world nations can be bridged.

The study is first of its kind, as it highlights the economic burden that the authors share in a fee‐based open access publishing world.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the theory and practice of peer review in open-access mega-journals (OAMJs). OAMJs typically operate a “soundness-only” review policy aiming to evaluate only the rigour of an article, not the novelty or significance of the research or its relevance to a particular community, with these elements being left for “the community to decide” post-publication.

The paper reports the results of interviews with 31 senior publishers and editors representing 16 different organisations, including 10 that publish an OAMJ. Thematic analysis was carried out on the data and an analytical model developed to explicate their significance.

Findings suggest that in reality criteria beyond technical or scientific soundness can and do influence editorial decisions. Deviations from the original OAMJ model are both publisher supported (in the form of requirements for an article to be “worthy” of publication) and practice driven (in the form of some reviewers and editors applying traditional peer review criteria to OAMJ submissions). Also publishers believe post-publication evaluation of novelty, significance and relevance remains problematic.

The study is based on unprecedented access to senior publishers and editors, allowing insight into their strategic and operational priorities. The paper is the first to report in-depth qualitative data relating specifically to soundness-only peer review for OAMJs, shedding new light on the OAMJ phenomenon and helping inform discussion on its future role in scholarly communication. The paper proposes a new model for understanding the OAMJ approach to quality assurance, and how it is different from traditional peer review.

This paper provides an extensive survey of the recent literature on scholarly publishing and its conversion to the electronic medium. It then presents the results of a questionnaire survey of the UK‐based scholarly publishing industry. The results of this survey suggest that the publishers are moving quickly towards the use of the Internet as a major medium for the distribution of their products, though they do not expect an early print publication. They also do not expect that any alternative system, based on scholars providing their results free of charge at the point of use, will seriously threaten the future of the commercial scholarly publisher. They do, however, perceive several significant difficulties in the near future. These include a shortage of appropriately trained staff, uncertainties about pricing mechanisms, lack of adequate budgetary provision by universities for library purchases, and unrealistic expectations on the part of scholars that electronic information should be inexpensive.

One of the tasks of the special librarian is to facilitate current awareness: services are set up to encourage user groups to keep up‐to‐date with developments in their own and related subject areas. The librarian advocates current awareness as an essential prerequisite for members of that user group to remain effective practitioners, researchers or teachers within their subject area. The librarian encourages and advocates because unfortunately some of those practitioners, researchers and teachers are either unconvinced of the need for current awareness or haven't the time/are not interested/cannot be bothered.

This article explores recent developments in the production and delivery of scholarly journal articles in digital form. It identifies the key stakeholders as authors, publishers, librarians and end users. It explores their concerns with regard to the digital journal production and delivery chain. It also explores the interrelationships of different stakeholder groups and considers how their concerns accord or conflict. The paper goes on to review cost and pricing developments. There appears to be no relationship between production costs and subscription prices of scholarly journals. Journals are priced according to what the market will bear, but, at the same time, the market is inelastic. As a result, prices have consistently increased annually at a rate well above the general inflation rate for the last two decades. Digital publishing by publishers has done nothing to relieve this problem. The ‘serials crisis’ has been the impetus for a number of developments that aim to use digital technology to reduce costs for the HE sector. These include alternative models of journal production such as that proposed by Harnad, and initiatives that aim to influence the structure of the market for scholarly journals with a view to driving prices down such as SPARC and HighWire Press. These developments are reviewed.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the coverage of Google Scholar for Library and Information Science (LIS) journal literature as identified by a list of core LIS journals from a study by Schlögl and Petschnig.

The paper checked every article from 35 major LIS journals from the years 2004 to 2006 for availability in Google Scholar. It also collected information on the type of availability – whether a certain article was available as a PDF for a fee, as a free PDF or as a preprint.

The paper found that only some journals are completely indexed by Google Scholar, that the ratio of versions available depends on the type of publisher, and that availability varies a lot from journal to journal. Google Scholar cannot substitute for abstracting and indexing services in that it does not cover the complete literature of the field. However, it can be used in many cases to easily find available full texts of articles already identified using another tool.

The study differs from other Google Scholar coverage studies in that it takes into account not only whether an article is indexed in Google Scholar at all, but also the type of availability.

Within the library world, there is a growing interest in the use of XML in journals, not least because of its implications for e‐journal archiving. But what is actually happening in the commercial journals market? How far have XML and its related standards permeated the production of real commercial journals and how do publishers and other providers of journals see this area developing? This paper looks at the activities and future plans of a selection of publishers and aggregators in the STM journals market, although many of the comments relate to the entire journals arena.

Electronic journals are an important alternative form of document delivery. Document delivery is performed by library networks and consortia, CD‐ROM suppliers, document delivery services, library suppliers and subscription agents, and electronic journal suppliers. This article reviews the general issues associated with electronic journals, and illustrates these with reference to the products and projects that are available in the UK. Subsequent to the early projects such as BLEND and Project Quartet, projects on electronic journals have been led by either publishers or consortia whose members include both major libraries and publishers. Among these projects are Ariel, EDDIS, EDIL, ADONIS, APPEAL and the UK Pilot Site Initiative. In order that electronic journals become an established option for document and information delivery, there are a number of questions that need to be answered from the perspectives both of libraries, and of the information industry. This article summarises some of these questions, and identifies some of the broader issues that will determine progress towards wide acceptance of electronic journals.

Intermediaries of various sorts have been key players in helping libraries in access to, and the acquisition of, serials. Subscription agents have been prominent, with a strong tradition in the print environment. They have developed additional services for libraries that focus on using automation to meet this objective, starting with serials management software and links to their databases in the 1980s, through to electronic journal services today. Intermediaries have a wider role in providing services in the area of electronic journals, to publishers as well as libraries. Current trends in scholarly publishing include the growth of alternative publishing initiatives. A key development at present is the growth of linking, including reference linking between publishers and the linking activities of intermediaries. The recent growth of library consortia in various countries has had an impact on library purchasing methods, and hence on the role and services of subscription agents. In this respect Swets Blackwell has been active as the managing agent in the UK NESLI Project.