RE: Emerald responds to dual publication

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

I add mention of the practice of republishing individual journal issues as
books. In the past, Pergamon was the major offender, a practice continued
for a while by Elsevier.  As an unpleasant variation, some of the books
were numbered monographic series--meaning a library might find itself with
two very high priced subscriptions, with overlapping content -- and the
volumes were usually conference proceedings as well, barely deserving a
single publication.  Another unpleasant variation was the publication of
the full conference as a book, and a large portion of it also as a
journal--forcing a subscriber to the journal to buy the book as well to
have all the papers.  I am glad to say that Elsevier has stopped dual
publication for many years now.

Kluwer did similarly, and refused to stop the practice, giving the
explicit reason that even a few more sales were essential to their
finances, as their subscription figures were so low. I hope this practice
has not continued under the current name and imprint.

Two publishers continue. The most important is the Royal Society (of
London.) Its Philosophical Transactions (both A & B) are now devoted to
reports of "Royal Society Discussion Meetings" .  Each of these issues is
also advertised separately as a book.  Various commercial publishers have
been involved from time to time in the publication of either the journal
or the books-- the continuing practice, alas, is apparently the desire of
the Society itself.  (The LC cataloging brings this out is various ways,
not all of them clear--the titles can generally be found by searching for
the phrase "royal society discussion") Most libraries would find many
worth buying if they were books, and probably many libraries do, and thus
are paying approximately double for these two series.

At the other end of the spectrum is Haworth, which publishes almost all of
its many journal issues as books. (It does not even select the appropriate
content from the issue, but republishes it --advertisements, book reviews,
columns, and all. There are two mitigating factors: the prices of neither
the books nor the journals is exorbitant, and the duplication is
advertised clearly and prominently. Haworth publishes its books/journals
in many fields of the applied social sciences-- prominent among them, as
we all know, is librarianship.

A general evaluation of the quality of librarianship publishing must be
based on other factors as well.  I do not at the moment feel pessemistic
enough to do it justice.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Hamaker, Chuck
Sent: Thu 2/3/2005 6:58 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Emerald responds to dual publication
 
The uncovering of systematic article duplication by Emerald/MCB Press by
Philip Davis raises anew concerns about librarian's role in managing
scholarly information.

Journal inflation via unwarranted publication in journals intended for
original research is not new. Deana Astle and I explored the history of
this in "Journal publishing: Pricing and structural issues in the 1930s
and the 1980s" (ADVANCES IN SERIALS MANAGEMENT, vol. 2, 1988: 1-36). The
most flagrant example from the 1920's and 30's was German scientific
publications including dissertations in chemistry and physics journals,
upping the page count to "justify" exorbitant prices. Beginning in the
1950's and exemplified by Robert Maxwell's infamous practices, some
publishers regularly fill up space in journals with conference
proceedings. Identified in the 1980's was the LPU, or "Least Publishable
Unit", also known as "salami publication designed to expand a resume and
inflate article counts.

In this context, of repeated complaints in library literature and in the
broader scholarly literature, it is surprising to see Dr. Howard of
Emerald/MCB write: "If there had been but one complaint...". in his press
release. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/rpsv/news/press/dual2005.htm The
profession has been complaining about inflated content from publishers for
most of his career as a publisher.  Our words have obviously fallen on
deaf ears.

The real question is not about Emerald. It's about librarians. For the
last twenty years we have taken the message to faculty that they should
care greatly about the publishing behavior and pricing policies of
publishers of "their" journals. We have preached that they should be
examining their practices. It turns out our own literature exemplifies
some of what we have been complaining of in other literatures. Will we
behave differently than faculty in other areas?

Chuck Hamaker
Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
Atkins Library
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223
phone 704 687-2825