Re: Tenure and journals (RE: Elsevier profit)

[David Goodman <dgoodman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>]

Yes, and there are a number of ways of telling (though no one single
foolproof factor).

1. Publisher. If such a journal is published by a society, especially if
it the only US, UK, or international society in the subject, it is
probably one of the very specialized ones. Many large commercial
publishers are unwilling to undertake a really small specialized
journal--though some of them will.

2. Citations by the journal. If the journal cites many publications of
greater importance but in the same general field, it is not likely to be a
very specialized journal, but simply a low quality one.  If it cites
mainly itself, it can be interpreted either way.

3. Citations to the journal. If the journal is essentially never cited by
any important publication, this factor can be interpreted either way.

4. Size. If the journal is large, with many dozens of articles a year, it
is not a journal in a very specialized field. If it is small, it can be
interpreted either way.

5. Institutional affiliations. If the authors are associated with esoteric
research institutes, it may well be one of the truly specialized
publications.

6. Other publications of the authors. If the authors have other
publications on the same general subject in more important journals, then
this is probably a low quality one where they publish their less exciting
work.

7. Other publications on the subject. If other papers on the subjects of
most articles in the journal appear in more important publications, then
this is almost certainly not a very specialized title. 8. Knowledge of the
publication pattern in the field.

I have for many years had primary collecting responsibility for two
subjects with diametrically opposite patterns. One is in a field,
molecular biology, where the lower cited journals are all of them of low
quality. The other, in evolutionary biology, is in a field with many very
specialized publications with infinitesimal impact factors.

There is a third posibility, not mentioned by Anthony, which can be more
difficult to identify. A small journal may be published by an institute or
other organization in which for personal or political reasons, one or two
important authors customarily publish. Such a journal would generally be
of importance to a good research collection, and should not be overlooked.
The only sign I know, besides knowledge of the field, is that the journal
has a few good primary articles that get a number of citations. (If they
are review articles it doesn't count. Many poor quality journals have one
or two of these an issue, generally from friends of the editor.)

On Thu, 3 April 2003, Anthony Watkinson wrote:

> I would like to raise another point, which arises from the report of
> Loughborough policies. Are leading journals those with a high impact
> factor? Presumably. However there is a great deal of important research
> (in science at least) which does not find a home in leading journals,
> defined in this way, just because it is specialised and for a
> sub-discipline not because it is scientifically of no interest. Good
> science does not need to be interesting to a large number of scientists to
> make it good science. A journal serving a specialised area (and attracting
> few citations)  is not the same as a journal with low standards and low
> quality content even if both of them have no impact factor or a low impact
> factor.
>
> Anthony Watkinson

Dr. David Goodman

Princeton University Library
and
Palmer School of Library and Information Science, LIU

dgoodman@princeton.edu