239.1 LIBRARIANS' CONCERN ABOUT CONTENT OF JOURNAL
OF MOLECULAR STRUCTURE, Dana Roth
239.2 PROFESSOR LAANE'S RESPONSE TO LIBRARIANS, Jaan Laane
239.3 PROFESSOR BARNES'S RESPONSE TO LIBRARIANS, A.J.
Barnes
239.1 LIBRARIANS' CONCERN ABOUT CONTENT OF JOURNAL
OF MOLECULAR STRUCTURE
Submitted by Dana Roth, Caltech, dzrlib@library.caltech.edu
The letter below (Re: Journal of Molecular Structure) resulted from the happy coincidence of Bob Michaelson and me both visiting Ken Rouse at UW-Madison on our way back from Minneapolis to Chicago after the SLA meeting in June.
During our visit, Ken mentioned that he had found 1) about 40% of the 1998 issues of Journal of Molecular Structure were devoted to conference papers, festschrift, bibliographies, etc., 2) that very few of the UW faculty were JMS authors, 3) that JMS had a very low ISI impact factor, 4) that JMS was very high priced (i.e. $10K for 10K pages), and that he was seriously considering cancellation. This coincided with my general concern about the publication of non-peer reviewed conference papers and abstracts in journals, in general, about which I have complained previously (NOSPI, no.200, January 27, 1998), and Bob's general concerns about grossly overpriced commercially published journals.
In August, Bob had the notion that we should be "responsible
consumers" by writing a letter in protest, and he did a first draft which Ken,
David Flaxbart and I critiqued. A draft was then sent to others who have been
active on CHMINF-L & other listservs to gain additional signatories.
Eventually, Bob sent the final draft out to the JMS editors (with copies
to CHMINF-L, STS-L, and SLA-PAM) on November 6.
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Professor Austin Barnes, Professor Jaan Laane
Editors, Journal of Molecular Structure
Dear Professors Barnes and Laane:
We are librarians at institutions that currently subscribe to the Journal of Molecular Structure, which you edit. While there are worthwhile articles published in this journal, we notice that a substantial portion of its content (approximately 44% in 1998) consists of extraneous or substandard material, including:
From our point of view this superfluous material merely pads out the journal to increase its subscription price. As your customers, we have the right to insist upon higher standards in this extraordinarily expensive product (approximately $10,000 in FY 2000 for about 10,000 pages per year), which we have, up until now, supported with our subscriptions. Indeed it is our duty to our institutions to insist on value for the money which we spend. As currently constituted, the Journal of Molecular Structure does not provide good value for our subscription dollars -- as indicated by its unimpressive ISI "impact factor" of 0.884 (1997), which ranks 57th out of 86 journals in ISI's Physical Chemistry category. The median impact factor in this category was 1.1815. [Theochem was 0.913, 56th.]
Although we would be willing -- at this time -- to continue our support of the standard, refereed articles that appear in the Journal of Molecular Structure, we are no longer willing (nor do we have the funds) to support material of the sort listed above. We strongly urge the Journal's editorial board to eliminate, or at least sharply reduce, the amount of extraneous material, resulting in a proportional reduction in price.
We hope that by working together on this issue we can resolve these problems and so allow the continuation of an improved Journal of Molecular Structure.
Finally, we note that of course we are aware that other journals, including titles from other publishers, include unnecessary padding that increases the price. It is our intention to identify other such journals and to contact their editors so as to make known our interests as customers.
Sincerely,
(signatories in alphabetical order; opinions expressed are our own, not necessarily those of our institutions)
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Tina E. Chrzastowski |
Robert Michaelson |
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University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign |
Northwestern University |
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Howard Dess |
Dana L. Roth |
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Rutgers University |
Caltech 1-32 |
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David Flaxbart |
Kendall Rouse |
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University of Texas at Austin |
University of Wisconsin-Madison |
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David Goodman |
David Stern |
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Princeton University Library |
Yale University |
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Erja Kajosalo |
Gary D. Wiggins |
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MIT Science Library |
Indiana University |
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239.2 PROFESSOR LAANE'S RESPONSE TO LIBRARIANS
Jaan Laane, Professor of Chemistry, Texas A and M University,
November 21, 1999
Dear librarians:
I can see that funding concerns have prompted you to write your letter. I am well aware that university libraries around the country are frustrated with the cost of journal subscriptions and limited resources. Having served as an associate dean and on many university committees, I am very familiar with this problem. As I also heavily use the library to keep up with research journals, I recognize the need of libraries to maintain their collections. At Texas A&M University we have been fortunate in convincing our regents to substantially increase library funding.
Professor Barnes will respond separately, but I will give you my own thoughts. At the outset, let me say that I am a full time professor with teaching duties and carrying out my own research program. I do the editorial work primarily for the prestige of doing so and as a service to the scientific community.
If I may condense your comments, my interpretation of your letter along with my response is given below.
1. The editors try to pad the journal to increase journal price.
Response: Professor Barnes and I accept or reject papers based on their scientific merit independent of any input from Elsevier. All papers undergo rigorous review by respected scientists and substandard manuscripts are rejected. Most published papers have recommended improvements suggested by the reviewers. The decisions whether to publish special issues and other matters are discussed periodically with the editorial board, which consists of internationally renowned scientists. The editors are not involved with setting the price of the journal, and we have not been encouraged to expand the number of pages for the journal. In fact, Elsevier limits the number of pages of print each year and this currently is delaying the publication of some accepted papers.
2. The special issues [Festschriften, as you call them] are of lower quality.
Response: These are designated to honor the top people in the structural chemistry field, and the contributors are also outstanding scientists who have been invited to submit papers on their most recent work. All these papers are also refereed, of course, as are all Journal articles. The quality of the publications in these special issues is even higher than those in the regular issues. I find it quite amazing that you have somehow been able to conclude that these are "mediocre or of low quality." They certainly do not represent "padding." The editorial board provides the editors regular input on which special issues should be planned.
3. Bibliographies of spectroscopic literature are of little use in this age of electronic databases.
Response: The bibliographies are extremely popular with our readers and their publication is supported by our editorial board. These save busy researchers weeks and weeks of time in trying to find only a small portion of these relevant references using current technology. The research scientist obviously has a different perspective from you as a librarian. Time is critical for the scientist. In addition, you must also remember that this is an international journal, and not every one has access to databases that those of us at large research universities in the USA have. Moreover, a computer search for material is always rather deficient and fails to find many of the relevant references. The use of bibliographies is never referenced in manuscripts, so it is difficult for you to assess this value since it does not contribute to the impact factor.
4. As our customers, you insist upon higher standards.
Response: We editors, with a rigorous refereeing process to insure high standards, base all our decisions on scientific merit. We do a service for the scientific community by disseminating research results that can advance the field of structural chemistry. You are customers of Elsevier and we are the evaluators of scientific articles for Elsevier. (It would be interesting to know which scientific committee you worked with to conclude that 44% of our content is "extraneous or substandard.")!!!!
5. Value is based on impact factors.
Response: This may be all that librarians can go on, and it does have some limited merit. However, it is not a direct measure of the quality of a publication or even of how often an article has been read or used. For example, routine studies of common chemicals (water, ammonia, etc.) are referenced more often than sophisticated studies of less common molecules. Cutting edge research is often not referenced because no one else works in that area. However, innovative scientific articles must surely be published. The impact factor also only measures the papers which are referenced within a short period of time after publication. Thus, cited papers are primarily referenced by others already working on similar projects. In any case, a specialty journal such as ours serves a more focused group of scientists and will be referenced less than a more general journal such as J. Am. Chem. Soc. or J. Chem. Phys.
6. If we reduce the number of pages, libraries will save money.
Response: If we refuse to publish papers which are scientifically of good quality, these will be published by other journals, thus increasing their size and cost to the libraries. Hence, there would be no savings.
The success of research universities has depended very much on the dissemination and sharing of scientific results. If we start to limit what research findings can be published, it would be a major disservice to the scientific community. As you are well aware, mediocre and low quality papers are already rejected by peer review, and there are quite a number of these that are submitted and rejected each year.
As I said at the outset, library budgets, along with other university budgets, are under financial pressure. I am sure that you are working to educate your administrators and/or legislators to help with this problem. We have finally had some success with this at Texas A&M University, and I hope you will have the same success.
Although I believe many of your assumptions to be flawed, we editors will continue to work with our editorial advisory board to discuss the issues you have addressed. All of us are interested in serving the academic community as best we can.
Thank you for expressing your concerns. I hope my comments help you appreciate that the problems and solutions are not as simple as you might have envisaged. You have obviously jumped to some conclusions which are not based on fact. My two degrees are from two of the institutions identified in your letter, the University of Illinois and MIT, where I extensively used the journals for my research. Hence, I sincerely wish all of the libraries good fortune in dealing with the continuing funding problem. Blocking the publication of worthwhile scientific results, however, is not a solution.
239.3 RESPONSE TO LIBRARIANS FROM PROFESSOR BARNES
Austin Barnes, Department of Chemistry and Applied Chemistry, University of
Salford, a.j.barnes@salford.ac.uk
Dear Mr Michaelson and co-signatories,
I am responding to your ill-informed and gratuitously offensive e-mail (dated 6 November) concerning the Journal of Molecular Structure, which I edit along with Professor Jaan Laane. While my first reaction was that I should not dignify it with a response, in view of the distinguished institutions that you represent it seems appropriate to correct the various misconceptions incorporated in your letter.
It should first be pointed out that your letter appears to treat the Journal of Molecular Structure and the Journal of Molecular Structure (THEOCHEM) as a single entity -- certainly the subscription price which you quote relates to the package comprising both journals -- whereas Jaan Laane and myself are responsible only for the Journal of Molecular Structure; there are other editors who are responsible for THEOCHEM. However, your principal allegation is that "a substantial proportion of its content (approximately 44% in 1998) consists of extraneous or substandard material," identified as bibliographies, conference proceedings, and Festschriften.
It is simply not correct to impute that the conference proceedings published in the Journal of Molecular Structure are "unrefereed, or refereed to a lower standard." The annex below sets out our standard policy relative to publication of conference proceedings, where we are aiming to publish as far as possible full, original papers. For just one conference series (EUCMOS, the European Congress on Molecular Spectroscopy), whose proceedings have by long-standing tradition been published in the Journal of Molecular Structure, the size of the meeting necessitates the imposition of length restrictions on submitted manuscripts, but the papers are nevertheless properly refereed.
Other special issues, such as Festschriften, are carefully chosen with the aim of attracting high quality papers from selected contributors (which are refereed in the same way as regular papers). An investigation of the impact factor on a volume by volume basis would likely reveal that such issues are regarded at least as positively as regular issues of the Journal. It could also be pointed out that the papers published in these various special issues would otherwise be published in a regular volume of the Journal of Molecular Structure, or elsewhere, which would consequently not lead to any saving in the overall number of journal pages. We do not have any wish to, or indeed any need to, "pad out" the Journal.
The bibliography published annually in the Journal of Molecular Structure is the only component which could possibly be regarded as "extraneous." However, we take note of the views of our clients (the scientists who use the Journal) who regard this bibliography as a valuable feature. It should be underlined that the classification of the papers listed represents a very substantial effort by the Japanese scientists involved in the project and provides a much more useful resource than the output of computer literature searches (which are, in any case, not accessible to scientists in less-developed countries).
Since the comments above could be taken as evidence of complacency, I should like to emphasise that these, and other, policy matters are regularly reviewed at Editorial Board meetings and meetings of the scientific editors (who are responsible for determining what is acceptable for publication) with the publishers (who are responsible for matters such as the number of pages available and the subscription price). We collectively welcome constructive input from all interested parties. I should also add that we are well aware of the, entirely legitimate, concerns of librarians and these are taken into account in such discussions.
Yours sincerely,
Austin Barnes
Annex: the recommended text for inclusion in conference circulars where the proceedings are to be published in the Journal of Molecular Structure.
PUBLICATION OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE
The invited lectures and a selection of the contributed papers will be published as a special issue of the Journal of Molecular Structure. Authors wishing to submit a paper should bring their manuscript with them to the Conference and hand the original plus two copies to the editorial representative or the organisers. Opportunity will be afforded to authors to amend their papers, where necessary, in the light of discussion at the Conference. All papers will be examined by referees and are expected to comply with the standards expected for a paper published by the Journal in a regular issue. Papers will be typeset, and manuscripts should be prepared according to the instructions available on the Elsevier web site (submission of a diskette version of the manuscript, together with the paper copies, is strongly encouraged). There are no specific length restrictions, but papers should be of a length appropriate to the material presented at the Conference.
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