Scholarly publishing as an industry has changed, dare we say evolved, over the last few decades. Some of this was by design and some was forced adaptation to a new reality. The Scholarly Kitchen brought this information to our attention in their article, “A Quick Tour Around the World of Scholarly Journal Publishing.”
This reality consists of startup companies trying to intermediate themselves into the processes of the journal publishing word, or cut them out altogether. With the limited time and funds available, some prioritization needs to be applied.
Despite digital and despite the world of instant gratification, scholarly publishing continues and is even experimenting with new ways of communicating. Scholarly publishing has moved into the digital age more gracefully and more successfully than nearly any other medium, which means more people now have more access to more research than ever before.
All this doesn’t mean more changes aren’t needed. It is time to listen, to ask and to discuss. At many publishing meetings, there is a session called a “researcher panel” where a bunch of scientists and researchers are asked what they think about publishing and all the cool new things publishers are doing. This process can help identify what really matters.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
