This book examines current issues in journals publishing and looks at how the industry will develop over the next few years. With contributions from leading academics and industry professionals, the book provides an authoritative and balanced view of this fast-changing area. There are a variety of views surrounding the future of journals and these are covered using a range of contributors. This book looks at a range of key topics that are of vital importance to academics and publishers alike. Will the journals business continue to grow? Open Access initiatives still form a relatively small part of journals publishing, but will they become the norm? How do librarians, publishers and academics see the future for journals? Will other forms of access to knowledge become more important? How will this part of publishing be affected by public policy, changes in copyright law, and the views of learned societies and research bodies It looks at a fast moving and vital area for academics and publishers, and contains contributions from leading international figures from universities and publishers.
Introduction; The growth of journals publishing; The place of journals in the academic knowledge system; The digitization of scientific communication; Journals ranking and impact factors; How libraries see the future for journals: what do libraries want?; The view from a learned society; Business models; Open Access: The view from research; Case study: Open Access at a major international publishing company; Case study of a major international publisher; Case study: journals in Africa; The journal in the era of the social web; Perhaps journals will not be central to the lives of tomorrow's scholars?; The future of copyright.; Scholarship and silence: our present mania for publication is an insult to the dignity of thought; The death of the journal: how in some areas, e.g. medicine, knowledge is being provided in forms other than the journal.
Bill Cope is Research Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA and Director of Common Ground Publishing. He is the co-author or editor of a number of books, including, with Angus Phillips, The Future of the Book in the Digital Age, also published by Chandos, in 2006. Angus Phillips is Director of the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies and Head of the Publishing Department at Oxford Brookes University. He worked for a number of years as a non-fiction editor at Oxford University Press and now acts as a consultant to publishing companies in the UK and internationally.